Explosion at Archer Daniels Midland plant in Illinois injures 8 workers

An explosion and fire at a food processing complex in Illinois injured eight employees Sunday night, authorities said.

The explosion occurred just after 7 p.m. at the east plant of the Archer Daniels Midland facility in Decatur, Illinois, about 40 miles east of Springfield.

Of the eight employees who were hurt, six were taken to a nearby hospital via ambulance, Daniel Kline, deputy chief of the Decatur Fire Department, told USA TODAY in an email. The extent of the injuries and the cause of the fire are "unknown," he said.

As of Monday morning, the fire was under control, Kline added. A crew from the Decatur Fire Department "remains on scene to monitor hot spots." No evacuation of nearby residents was warranted, Kline said.

The weather camera of a local news station WCIA captured a large plume of black smoke rising from the plant around the time of the explosion.

According to the ADM website, more than 4,000 employees work at the company's North American headquarters in Decatur. The facility "is the single largest location and employee base across ADM’s global footprint."

This is not the first explosion or fire to hurt people and cause damage at the Decatur facility.

In April, three employees were injured in a blast in one of the west plant's grain elevators, reported The Herald & Review.

And late last month, a large fire broke out at the ADM Decatur east plant, injuring two responding firefighters, who were briefly hospitalized.

The blaze was so large and difficult to get to that, at one point, "all of the City’s fire apparatus, but one, was at the fire," according to a public statement from the Decatur Fire Department.

It took the firefighters more than 12 hours to put out the fire, the department said.