UPDATE: Over 30 Hurt in NY State Cosmetics Plant Blasts

Officials said 33 people, including seven firefighters, were injured after two explosions Monday morning at a cosmetics plant in New Windsor, NY, and one person is unaccounted for, local and national news organizations reported.

Some 120 firefighters from 30 area fire departments and state agency officials responded to the site after the first explosion and resulting fire was reported at about 10:20 a.m., according to a Lower Hudson Journal News report.

Seven firefighters were injured by a second explosion as they entered the facility, the newspaper said.

The town supervisor, George Green, told the Herald-Record that flames had spread throughout the plant when fire crews arrived. A local fire department described the incident to the AP as a “five-alarm chemical fire.”

Crews remained on scene battling fire into Monday evening. Orange County Emergency Medical Services told the Journal News that it deployed a mass casualty plan and issued a short shelter-in-place order within a half-mile radius of the site.

Inspections by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the recent past revealed “serious” safety violations, according to the newspaper’s report.

A private label contract packaging and filling firm founded in 1980, New Windsor-based Verla offers nail polish, color cosmetics, personal care items, creams, lotions, fragrances and more, according to the company’s website. Its 50-acre campus features 250,000-sq-ft of manufacturing, warehouse, office, and laboratory space.

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