A large explosion at a natural gas plant just outside of Houston last Tuesday has left one man dead. The accident occurred at Enterprise Products in Mont Belvieu on February 8th over the noon hour.

The body of the contract maintenance worker originally listed as missing after the deadly explosion was not located by the search crew until more than 36 hours after the blast. The large natural gas explosion that took the man's life burned for close to a day before being extinguished. One eye-witness reported that the man was positioned directly in the middle of the cloud of gas before it ignited, so there was little opportunity for him to escape. The man had been on-site for a scheduled "system improvement project" at the time of the fatal industrial accident.

An Enterprise search crew had to wait until the fire died Wednesday before it was safe to begin an extensive search for the man's body. They ended up finding him at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The man's truck remained parked outside the natural gas facility Thursday, a solemn reminder of the loss of life that occurred earlier that week.

Employees of the natural gas company are also now tasked with determining the root cause(s) of the accident. A pump failure in an exposed pipe rack area has already been identified by Enterprise Products as a potential cause of the natural gas pipeline accident.

Family of the contract maintenance worker had expressed some discontent to the news media late last week about the limited information they'd received from Enterprise Products in the days following the fatal industrial accident. The man is survived by two daughters, ages 12 and 13.

Sources: Houston Chronicle "Missing worker's remains found after plant blast" by Mike Morris, 2/10/11