CNN —
Two additional bodies have been found by search and rescue teams working to locate missing individuals after the explosion of an eastern Pennsylvania candy factory last week, raising the incident’s death toll to seven people, officials said Sunday.
“We do believe them to be the remaining presumptive missing individuals,” Wayne Holben, Chief of the West Reading Police Department, said at a news conference.
Now that all missing individuals have been accounted for, the focus will shift to an investigation of the explosion, West Reading Mayor Samantha Kaag said.
The explosion erupted shortly before 5 p.m. Friday, leveling the R.M. Palmer Co. facility and stunning West Reading – a community of about 4,500 people that has been home to the chocolatier’s operation for more than six decades.
Three buildings surrounding the factory will be condemned as a precaution, Kaag said. She explained that the buildings need to be assessed by structural engineers before “being released.” “This does not mean they are slated for demolition or uninhabitable,” she said in a statement.
Search and rescue teams raced against time over the weekend as they looked for missing people, using drones and heat imaging devices before turning to heavy equipment to “methodically” remove rubble, Holben said.
One woman was rescued alive among the rubble of the building’s lower floor on Saturday morning, the police chief said. The survivor was conscious when she was discovered, he said, but there was no update on her condition as of Sunday.
At least eight people were hospitalized at the Reading Hospital following the blast, a spokesperson for the hospital told CNN. As of Saturday, two were in fair condition, five had been discharged and one had been transferred to another facility.
R.M. Palmer said in a statement that the explosion has had a “profound impact” on its company.
“We appreciate the outpouring of support as all of us continue to deal with the loss of our friends and coworkers. We offer our heartfelt condolences to those families who have lost loved ones and hope those injured will recover quickly,” said the statement posted on the company’s Facebook page.
