Explosions Flatten Fireworks Factory

Explosions ripped through a fireworks factory in eastern Australia on Sunday, damaging or destroying 50 buildings and throwing New Year's Eve fireworks displays in three state capitals in doubt, according to officials.

Andrew Rawson, a local resident, said he felt the impact of two explosions.

"We felt the first one and then went outside, saw the flare of the second explosion and the shockwave hit us a few seconds after that," he told Australian broadcaster AuBC.

A spokeswoman for the New South Wales state Rural Fire Service said at least 10 homes in Wallerawang,160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Sydney, were temporarily evacuated and emergency services kept their distance as blasts continued and fire spread through the factory.

Authorities set up a one kilometer overnight exclusion zone around the Howard and Sons Fireworks factory, the spokeswoman added.

Police and other officials entered the site on Sunday and were examining the wreckage to find the cause of the explosions, which started in a shipping container used to store fireworks.

Tony Hoolahan, a New South Wales Police Inspector said preliminary investigations pointed to one of the containers containing the fireworks had exploded and the blast was heard as far away as Lithgow, 20 kilometers away from the blast scene.

"There's been a fair bit of damage to houses in the local vicinity and we have evacuated some houses," he said.

Owner Andrew Howard said 20 buildings on the 154-hectare (380-acre) property were razed and 30 others were damaged.

Plans for New Year's Eve fireworks displays in the capitals of three states were now in doubt because of the damage.

The company says it put on pyrotechnics displays at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games last year, the 2002 soccer World Cup in Korea, and other events.