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TENNESSEE: A blast that leveled an explosives plant Friday in rural Tennessee left 19 people missing and feared dead, authorities said.
Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said the blast at Accurate Energetic Systems, which supplies the military, was one of the worst scenes he’s ever seen. He said multiple people were killed but declined to say how many, referring to the 19 missing as “souls” because officials were still speaking to family.
“There’s nothing to describe. It’s gone,” Davis said of the plant.
The blast occurred about 7:45 a.m., Davis said, with aerial footage by WTVF-TV showing the smoldering hilltop facility and the burnt-out shells of vehicles.
People reported hearing and feeling the explosion from miles away. The company’s website says it makes and tests explosives at an eight-building facility that sprawls across wooded hills in the Bucksnort area, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Nashville.
Davis said investigators are trying to determine what happened and couldn’t say what caused the explosion.
There’s no further danger of explosions, and the scene was under control Friday afternoon, according to Grey Collier, a spokesperson for the Humphreys County Emergency Management Agency.
Emergency crews were initially unable to enter the plant because of continuing detonations, Hickman County Advanced EMT David Stewart said by phone. He didn’t have any details on casualties.
Accurate Energetic Systems, based in nearby McEwen, did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment Friday morning.
“This is a tragedy for our community,” McEwen Mayor Brad Rachford said in an email. He referred further comment to a county official.
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 said by phone. “I live very close to Accurate and I realized about 30 seconds after I woke up that it had to have been that.”
State Rep. Jody Barrett, a Republican from the neighboring town of Dickson, was worried about the possible economic impact because the plant is a key employer in the area.
“We live probably 15 miles as the crow flies and we absolutely heard it at the house,” Barrett said. “It sounded like something going through the roof of our house.”

GENEVA: The UN children’s charity UNICEF called on Friday for all crossings for food aid into war-shattered Gaza to be opened, saying children in the territory were especially vulnerable because they have gone without proper food for long periods.

“The situation is critical. We risk seeing a massive spike in child death, not only neonatal, but also infants, given their immune systems are more compromised than ever before,” said UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires.
Children’s immunity is low because “they haven’t been eating properly and recently at all for way too long,” he said.
Israeli troops began pulling back from some parts of the Palestinian territory on Friday under a ceasefire deal with Hamas, in the first phase of an initiative by US President Donald Trump to end the two-year-old war.
The UN plans to ramp up humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, where some areas are experiencing famine, in the first 60 days of a ceasefire in the enclave, a top UN official said on Thursday.
An Israeli security source and the UN World Food Programme said they expect about 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily.
“Under the ceasefire arrangement, we will have more than 145 community distribution points, in addition to up to 30 bakeries and all of our nutrition sites,” Ross Smith, WFP director of emergencies, said on Friday.
The WFP expects to begin scaling up deliveries early next week, but that would depend on the withdrawal of Israeli forces so that humanitarian safe zones can be expanded.
Access to northern Gaza is critical, the WFP said, with up to 400,000 people who have not received assistance for several weeks.
The agency has urged improved scanning and approval of aid convoys to speed truck entry.
UNICEF said 50,000 children were at risk of acute malnutrition and in need of immediate treatment. 
UNICEF also aims to provide 1 million blankets for every child in Gaza and hopes to deliver wheelchairs and crutches, which it said had previously been blocked.
The UN children’s agency said it had evacuated two of 18 newborns from a North Gaza hospital to be reunited with their parents further south. 
Its attempt to move two of the babies was suspended on Thursday amid an ongoing Israeli military assault on the city, but the children have since been reunited with their parents.
“We had 18 babies in incubators at the beginning of week. Two got moved yesterday,” spokesperson Pires told the Geneva press briefing, saying the others are waiting in incubators for Israeli security clearance.
“I hope this is just an example of what will come after the ceasefire is fully implemented,” he said.
Also on Friday, CARE International said it still had not received clearance for its supplies to enter, as it faces ongoing registration barriers, like other agencies, including the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“We still need clarity on how we’ll be able to get supplies into Gaza that have been stuck outside for months,” said Jolien Veldwijk, CARE Palestine country director.
Both UNICEF and the UN Palestinian refugee relief agency UNRWA said they have yet to receive details on their roles during the ceasefire.
UNRWA, which is banned from operating in Israel, has urged the Israeli authorities to allow it to take 6,000 trucks’ worth of aid into Gaza, including enough food to feed the population for three months, from Jordan and Egypt.
“We’ve not had any progress to move those supplies into Gaza ... and this is absolutely critical in controlling the spread of famine,” Juliette Touma, the spokesperson for UNRWA, said