All 19 people missing after a devastating blast leveled a Tennessee bomb factory are presumed dead, officials said Saturday.
“They’ve gone through almost every square inch of this facility. We have recovered no survivors,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said crying, during a heartbreaking Saturday morning update.
Authorities are in the process of identifying the remains with DNA, he added.
“It’s a tremendous loss, a great loss,” Davis said. “We have communities that have been truly devastated.”
More than 300 emergency crews have been working the scene.
Nineteen people were working in the building at the time of the tragedy.
“We can assume they are deceased,” Davis said. “Hope’s always in my heart. But I don’t want to give false hope either.”
“It’s a great loss for our communities,” he repeated.
Davis added the cause is still under investigation, and it could be “days or weeks or months” before authorities know what set off the explosion.
