HAVEN, Kan. — Authorities were allowing people to return to their homes Friday near a Reno County gas plant a day after an explosion rocked the plant and led to a fire there.
Officials lifted the evacuation order Friday morning after about 90 people were evacuated Thursday and sent to hotels for the night, television station KSN reported.
Fire crews and emergency management officials were called to the Haven Midstream plant around 1:15 p.m. Thursday for the explosion and fire. Two people suffered minor injuries and were taken to a Wichita hospital.
Residents within a 2-mile (3.22-kilometer) radius of the plant were evacuated following the explosion. The plant is located near Haven, which is about 33 miles (53.11 kilometers) northwest of Wichita.
Kansas Highway 96 near the plant was also closed but had mostly reopened by Friday morning.
State, county, and city emergency management teams and Haven Midstream personnel are evaluating the next steps, and an engineering forensics group from Houston, along with environmental health and safety experts and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are looking into the cause of the explosion and fire.
The plant super-cools natural gas flowing through the interstate pipeline system and extracts the resulting liquids, which are processed into different components like methane, butane and propane, and sold to various industries.
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