��������

McEWEN, Tennessee: A blast in rural Tennessee that leveled an explosives plant and was felt for miles around killed 16 people and left no survivors, authorities said.
The explosion left a smoldering wreck of twisted and charred metal and burned-out vehicles at the Accurate Energetic Systems plant, which supplies and researches explosives for the military.
The cause of the blast is not known. Investigators are combing the incinerated property foot-by-foot searching for possible evidence.
“There’s a gauntlet of emotions there,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said during a news conference, pausing to clear his throat before he asked for prayers for the families of the victims in a shaky voice.
“We’ve recovered no survivors,” he added.

During a vigil at Hurricane Chapel in McEwen, senior pastor Tim Farris noted that many in attendance know each other, the victims and their families.
“There’s a lot of people hurting. A lot of people who are crying a lot of tears,” he said. “We are sad that our community is going through this, but it’s a tremendous opportunity for the church to minister to a lot of those people today.”
Farris said he spoke with some families of victims on Friday who were in shock and numb, and they did not show much emotion. That had changed by Saturday, he said.
“Speaking with some of the families today, they were very emotional,” Farris said. “They can hardly speak or anything, they are so emotional. I think as this goes on, it’s going to hit more people. The depth of this, the reality of it. That’s when they’re going to need people the most.”
Pamela Jane Brown was among those who came out to pray for friends missing in the blast and their families. She said an acquaintance of her family was driving by the plant when it exploded, and he was “hurt pretty good ... all cut up and bruised,” but is now recovering at home.
“I was heartbroken,” she said, after learning of the explosion on social media. Meeting others for prayer “was a coming together of the community – a good feeling.”
State officials brought in a “rapid DNA” team to help identify the remains of people recovered at the site.
Davis said about 300 responders are working in a “slow, methodical method” as they deal with explosive material that has been damaged and remains volatile. An ambulance and a helicopter used for air evacuations were brought in, for the safety of first responders.
“It’s not like working an accident. It’s not like working a tornado. We’re dealing with explosions. And I would say at this time, we’re dealing with remains,” he said.
Guy McCormick, a supervisory special agent with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said explosive specialists and bomb technicians are trying to make the area safe for national ATF investigators. He said the nature of the scene can change because of the heat and pressure caused by the explosion.
Davis said it could be days, weeks or even months before foul play is ruled out.
The site is located in a heavily wooded area of middle Tennessee, between the economically vital Tennessee River to the west and the bustling metropolis of Nashville to the east. Modest homes dot the wooded landscape, residences belonging to “good old country people,” as local man Terry Bagsby put it.
‘A lot of grief’
Bagsby, 68, is retired but he helps out working the register at a gas station near the site. He said people in the close-knit community are “very, very sad.”
He said he knows people who worked at the site.
“I don’t know how to explain it. … Just a lot of grief.”
Officials at an evening news conference said counselors would be available for grieving students on Monday.
Earlier Saturday afternoon at the church in McEwen, about 30 people gathered to pray for victims of the explosion and their families. Music played and mourners bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Some knelt at an altar, placing their hands on each others’ backs and shoulders. Some wept softly, among the whispered prayers.
After the vigil, Farris, the pastor, told media that the area has seen its share of tragedy and loss of life, including a deadly flood a few years ago. He asked for prayers for first responders.
“This is tiresome physically. This kind of thing weighs on you mentally. They carry that home. They need prayer and encouragement as well,” he said.
The company’s website says it processes explosives and ammunition at an eight-building facility that sprawls across wooded hills in the Bucksnort area, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Nashville. It is not immediately known how many people work at the plant or how many were there when the explosion happened.
Accurate Energetic Systems, based in nearby McEwen, said in a post on social media on Friday that the company’s “thoughts and prayers” are with the families and community impacted.
“We extend our gratitude to all first responders who continue to work tirelessly under difficult conditions,” the post said.
Explosion jolts residents from sleep
The company has been awarded numerous military contracts, largely by the US Army and Navy, to supply different types of munitions and explosives, according to public records. The products range from bulk explosives to land mines and small breaching charges, including C4.
When the explosion occurred, residents in Lobelville, a 20-minute drive from the scene, said they felt their homes shake, and some people captured the loud boom of the explosion on their home cameras.
The blast rattled Gentry Stover from his sleep.
“I thought the house had collapsed with me inside of it,” he told The Associated Press. “I live very close to Accurate, and I realized about 30 seconds after I woke up that it had to have been that.”
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee posted on the social platform X that he is monitoring the situation and asked “Tennesseans to join us in prayer for the families impacted by this tragic incident.”
A small group gathered for a vigil Friday night at a nearby park, clutching candles as they prayed for the missing and their families and sang “Amazing Grace.”
The US has a long history of deadly accidents at workplaces, including the Monongah coal mine explosion that killed 362 men and boys in West Virginia in 1907. Several high-profile industrial accidents in the 1960s helped lead President Richard Nixon to sign a law creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration the next year.
In 2019, Accurate Energetic Systems faced several small fines from the US Department of Labor for violations of policies meant to protect workers from exposure to hazardous chemicals, radiation and other irritants, according to citations from OSHA.
In 2014, an explosion occurred at another ammunition facility in the same small community, killing one person and injuring at least three others.
 

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas will begin releasing Israeli hostages held in Gaza on Monday morning, a top official from the Palestinian militant group told AFP, before US President Donald Trump chairs an international summit in Egypt on his peace plan for the region.
As part of the deal’s first phase, Hamas, whose deadly attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023 sparked the conflict, will free the captives, 20 of whom Israel believes are still alive, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
“According to the signed agreement, the prisoner exchange is set to begin on Monday morning as agreed,” Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP in an interview Saturday.
Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will then chair a summit of more than 20 countries in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday afternoon, the Egyptian presidency announced.
The meeting will aim “to end the war in the Gaza Strip, enhance efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, and usher in a new era of regional security and stability,” it said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he will attend, as has Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his counterparts from Italy and Spain, Giorgia Miloni and Pedro Sanchez, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
There was no immediate word on whether Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be there while Hamas said it would not take part as it had “acted principally through... Qatari and Egyptian mediators” during talks, Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran said.
Despite the apparent breakthrough, mediators still have the tricky task of securing a longer-term political solution that will see Hamas hand in weapons and step aside from governing Gaza.
Badran said the second phase of Trump’s plan “contains many complexities and difficulties” while one Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said disarming was “out of the question.”

Multinational force

Under the Trump plan, as Israel conducts a phased withdrawal from Gaza’s cities, it will be replaced by a multi-national force from Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates, coordinated by a US-led command center in Israel.
On Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Admiral Brad Cooper, Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner visited Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were again on the move, returning to their devastated homes.
Witkoff, Kushner and Trump’s daughter Ivanka then went on to Tel Aviv to attend a gathering with the families of the remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza, where crowds shouted “Thank you Trump.”
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is one of about 20 hostages believed to still be alive, said: “We will continue to shout and fight until everyone is home.”
“We finally feel hope, but we cannot and will not stop now,” added Zairo Shachar Mohr Munder, whose uncle Abraham was abducted during the Hamas attack and his body recovered in August.
Hamas has until noon on Monday to hand over 47 remaining hostages — living and dead — from the 251 abducted in the attack two years ago, which led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians.
The remains of one more hostage, held in Gaza since 2014, are also expected to be returned.
In exchange, Israel will release 250 prisoners, including some serving life sentences for deadly anti-Israeli attacks, and 1,700 Gazans detained by the military since the war broke out.
The Israeli prison service said Saturday it had moved the 250 national security detainees to two prisons ahead of the handover.

‘Stood and cried’ 

More than 500,000 Palestinians had returned to Gaza City by Saturday evening, according to Gaza’s civil defense agency, a rescue service operating under Hamas authority.
“We walked for hours, and every step was filled with fear and anxiety for my home,” Raja Salmi, 52, told AFP.
When she reached the Al-Rimal neighborhood, she found her house utterly destroyed.
“I stood before it and cried. All those memories are now just dust,” she said.
Drone footage shot by AFP showed whole city blocks reduced to a twisted mess of concrete and steel reinforcing wire.
The walls and windows of five-story apartment blocks had been torn off and now lay choking the roadsides as disconsolate residents poked through the rubble.
The UN’s humanitarian office says Israel has allowed agencies to start transporting 170,000 tons of aid into Gaza if the ceasefire holds.

‘Ghost town’ 

Men, women and children navigated streets filled with rubble, searching for homes amid collapsed concrete slabs, destroyed vehicles and debris.
Sami Musa, 28, returned alone to check on his family’s house.
“Thank God... I found that our home is still standing,” Musa told AFP.
“It felt like a ghost town, not Gaza,” Musa said. “The smell of death still lingers in the air.”
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 67,682 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.
The data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.