A person was found dead Saturday morning in an Illinois factory destroyed by a huge explosion Friday night, county officials said.

Rescuers had to stop looking for two missing persons due to the structural instability of the site damaged by the fire of AB Specialty Silicones factory in Waukegan, Illinois, reported managers. Heavy equipment will have to be brought in to search for the remaining bodies.

Four people were injured after the explosion "which shook the ground". Many residents of the area went on Twitter to describe the huge noise and jolts that accompanied the explosion just after 9:30 pm local time on Friday night.

The plant was in operation at the time of the conflagration, said Commander Joseph Florip of the Waukegan Police Department at the Chicago Tribune.

At 10 o'clock in the evening. The sheriff's office issued an alert on Twitter, stating that he was "aware of a very strong explosion and an earthquake in the Gurnee region".

The Saturday morning television pictures showed that the factory was almost completely destroyed.

At least five other nearby buildings were also damaged during the blast, which would have caused more than $ 1 million in destruction, said Florip, spokesman for the Waukegan Police Department, at CNN.

This is the second major industrial accident in the region in the past two weeks.

On April 25, the town of Beach Park, five miles north of Waukegan, was leaked with chemicals that hospitalized 37 people, Lake Constable sheriff Christopher Covelli said in an online statement. . Anhydrous ammonia containers, a fertilizer, leaked during transport.

Waukegan is about 40 miles north of Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan.

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