Eight ADM personnel were taken to hospital via ambulance, with the extent of their injuries unknown at the time, fire department official Dan Kline said in an emailed statement, adding that the fire that was now under control.
ADM said the incident happened at 7:11 p.m. CDT (0011 GMT) and that the injured had been taken to a hospital.
The company said it did not have a confirmed cause of the incident as of Sunday night.
Comment: Footage of the explosion:
The Decatur site, ADM's North American headquarters and its largest facility globally, houses a soybean crushing plant and one of the largest corn wet mills in the world.
It also has the capacity to produce 375 million gallons of ethanol biofuel annually, making it the largest in the country, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
It was not immediately clear whether the blast would impact the processing facilities. The company did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
Comment: Given the plants function and importance, it seems reasonable to suspect that this is yet another food processing plant fire that was likely due to sabotage, with the intention to further disrupt the food supply chain: Huge fire erupts at grain silos at French Atlantic port, follows explosions of silos in Turkey, Brazil, in last 2 weeks (10th August 2023)
Below is just a selection of some of the other food plant fires in the last year or so: