Puffed up like a straw. On Wednesday, a tornado severely damaged a large Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina near Rocky Mount.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said in an email to US news agency AP that no serious injuries had been reported. A later company statement said all employees were evacuated and taken to the shelter.
Parts of the factory roof were abruptly torn off. Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone told local media that the Pfizer plant was stockpiling a large amount of drugs.
Drug shortages to be expected
“I have received reports of 50,000 pallets of medicine scattered around the area and damaged by rain and wind,” the official said. The plant produces anesthetics and other drugs, as well as nearly 25% of all sterile injectables used in US hospitals, according to the Pfizer website. Erin Fox, senior director of pharmacy at the University of Utah, said the damage is “likely to lead to long-term shortages as Pfizer works to relocate production or rebuild.”
The strength of this tornado was measured by US weather services. The National Weather Service tweeted that the damage was consistent with an EF2 tornado with winds reaching 150 mph. The Edgecomb County Sheriff’s Office, where part of the town of Rocky Mount is located, also said on Facebook that three people were injured in the tornado. According to another preliminary report from Nash County, this time around 13 people were injured and 89 structures were damaged, according to local WRAL-TV.
Source: Le Parisien
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