Hazardous materials workers walk on the scene at Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co., on Wednesday, May 27, 2026. A chemical disaster occurred May 26 leaving at least one dead and nine missing at the plant in Longview, Wash.,
Eli Imadali / OPB
At least nine people are still unaccounted for after a chemical tank ruptured at a Southwest Washington paper mill, killing at least one person and injuring nine others.
A 900,000-gallon tank holding white liquor, a corrosive compound used in the paper-making process, ruptured at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company in Longview, Washington, early Tuesday morning.
As evening fell, rescue workers suspended recovery operations at the facility due to the ongoing threat of exposure to corrosive chemicals.
“Due to the instability of the site, some areas remain inaccessible at this time,” Longview Fire Department Battalion Chief Matt Amos said late Tuesday.
The tank’s structural instability creates a dangerous situation for emergency responders, officials said, in part because they estimate it still holds a potential 90,000 gallons of white liquor. Despite these ongoing risks, community leaders were quick to add there was no danger to the industrial city of 115,000 that sits along the Columbia River, but they asked people to stay clear of dikes and ditches nearby due to possible contamination.
As Longview and Cowlitz County firefighters worked to stabilize the site throughout the day, new details about the scope of the emergency came to light. The tank was 10 times larger than first responders initially stated, and on Tuesday evening, fire department officials referred to the tank rupture as a “failure” after previously calling the incident an “implosion.”
The exact toll of the incident is not yet clear. Multiple people were transported to regional hospitals, including one firefighter who has since been treated and released. Some employees of the paper mill were still unaccounted for as of Tuesday evening; Longview Fire Department officials said all the impacted families have been notified.
The mill in Longview, which has about 1,000 employees, is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Nippon Paper Group, a major global pulp and paper products company. The Nippon Dynawave office in Longview declined to comment on the incident. OPB has yet to hear back from its parent company.
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson said the state’s emergency resources are assisting with recovery efforts, including divisions of the Washington National Guard.
“We’ll be here to do everything we can to help with the situation and we’ll be here as long as it takes,” he told reporters Tuesday evening in Longview.
A shaken community
Little is known about the cause of the tank failure and the scope of the injuries as concerns mount about those who still remained missing.
Firefighters first received reports about an “implosion or explosion of a tank with three burned and one missing” around 7 a.m. Tuesday, Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said.
People walk out in an embrace as they leave the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers Local 153 Hall, where dozens of family, friends and others gathered in Longview, Wash., on May 26, 2026, in the wake of the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. chemical implosion.
Eli Imadali / OPB
“The people who are responders here have friends and relatives that work on site. It is something that is impactful,” he said.
Cowlitz County officials directed relatives of Nippon Dynawave employees to a “family assistance center” at the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers union hall in Longview.
Many cried as they filed in and out of the assistance center, which was staffed by social workers, emergency responders and law enforcement. Some people came just to leave flowers.
Crystal Moldenhauer, a former Longview School Board member, said she lost a friend in the incident and is concerned about others she knows who work at the paper mill.
“These are just friends for me. It’s numbing. But these wives of these men, I can’t even describe how much pain they are in right now,” Moldenhauer said. “And now having to explain to their children that someone’s not coming home.”
PeaceHealth spokesperson Jim Murez confirmed to OPB that at least one person died. No other fatalities have been confirmed, but earlier in the day, Longview Fire Department Battalion Chief Mike Gorsuch described the site of the incident to the Associated Press as a “mass casualty scene.”
Longview Fire emergency responders drive out of Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. after a chemical implosion early in the morning at the Longview, Wash., facility on May 26, 2026.
Eli Imadali / OPB
PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center in Longview received nine people hurt in the incident. Six were in fair condition and two have been transferred elsewhere, Murez said midday Tuesday.
A Legacy Health spokesperson confirmed it is caring for patients from the incident at its Legacy Oregon Burn Center, the only specialty burn clinic in the region.
The Washington Department of Labor and Industries, one of the agencies involved in Tuesday’s response, has inspected the Nippon Dynawave plant three times over the past five years. The state agency has cited the facility for violations, but all were unrelated to storage safety or chemical processing.
Many community members have been shaken by news of the disaster. Hundreds of people gathered at R.A. Long Park in Longview for a vigil Tuesday evening. Local faith leaders led the crowd in prayers and ended the candlelight gathering with the hymn Amazing Grace.
Safety history
The Nippon facility makes liquid packaging board — like what’s used for milk cartons — as well as pulp, according to the Washington Department of Ecology. Nippon purchased the mill from Weyerhaeuser in 2016 for $285 million.
Although the Washington Department of Labor and Industries’ past inspections have not found violations clearly related to Tuesday’s incident, the agency has issued fines against the Nippon Dynawave plant for other concerns.
Nippon Dynawave Packaging Co. in Longview, Wash., May 26, 2026.
Brandon Swanson / OPB
The company was fined $700 after state inspectors found a platform higher than four feet lacked protective guardrails. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was fined $2,700 because not all employees wore required face coverings.
Last year, a worker lost a finger. The state cited Nippon Dynawave for failing to keep equipment in place until an inspector could arrive on site and investigate.
Regulators didn’t issue a fine after that incident. The agency’s spokesperson Matt Ross said there were also two ongoing inspections at the Longview facility.
One involves a valve on an aqua ammonia clarifier tank. The other was opened this month after a complaint about a sinkhole, which was created by a failed drain. Both were reported to the state anonymously, Ross said, and were unrelated to Tuesday’s incident.
“After the first responders have done what they need to do, our role will be to find out what happened, why, and how we stop it from happening again,” Ross told OPB. “Inspections can take up to six months, with results released after that work is done.”
The state Department of Ecology, which regulates air and water quality for the facility, is investigating any environmental consequences of the tank rupture.
The agency is not associated with regulating the Nippon tank involved in the incident.
FILE - Steam is seen at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company plant, which manufactures liquid packaging board, in March, 2024, in Longview, Wash.
Jenny Kane / AP
“They don’t have any recent environmental penalties from Ecology,” agency spokesperson Brittny Goodsell told OPB. “Nothing in their compliance history points to a current issue either.”
Nippon did report to the agency that white liquor was involved in the tank rupture and may have spilled into a nearby drainage ditch. That spill is a violation of the water quality permit the company holds with the department.
“Obviously in that instance, they weren’t able to treat anything beforehand,” because of the nature of the incident, Goodsell said. “The facility did what they needed to do by letting us know about it as soon as they could.”
The spills team with the department will evaluate the impact on the ditch, she said, and work with the company to figure out next steps.
Those next steps could take time as first responders still work to bring the scene under control. Officials said they would provide their next update sometime Wednesday morning.
