Smithfield pork plant stays closed after ammonia leak

Smithfield Foods Inc.'s Tar Heel, North Carolina pork packing plant, the world's largest, remained closed on Wednesday after a water tank collapsed and caused an ammonia leak a day earlier, the company said.

"It is a matter of getting power restored, a big part of the problem is that the water tank that ruptured actually knocked out our transformers," said Dennis Pittman, a company spokesman.

It is likely the Tar Heel plant, which has a daily slaughter capacity of about 34,000 hogs, could resume operations by the second shift on Thursday, Reuters reports.

Ten workers were sent to a hospital as a result of the leak, and two were being kept under observation as of Tuesday evening. There was some pork products that were damaged as well.

Source: Reuters

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