MORE than 18,000 cows were killed and one person injured after a fireball explosion ripped through a family dairy farm.
The blast at South Fork Dairy near Dimmitt, Texas, on Monday has been dubbed the deadliest cattle incident ever recorded in the US.
The devastating explosion killed 18,000 cows and left one woman in a critical condition[/caption]
The cattle were trapped in holding pens as the blaze tore through the Texas farm[/caption]
Up to £28million in damage has been caused by the horror incident[/caption]
Officials suspect a machinery malfunction in the facility may have ignited methane gas – which is released by cows when they fart or burp – triggering the devastating eruption.
A subsequent fire then quickly began to spread throughout the holding pens, where thousands of dairy cows were crammed in.
The helpless animals were waiting to be milked at around 7.20pm when the flames began to engulf them.
Firefighters rushed to the farm to douse the blaze, but had to battle for several hours to get it under control.
Plumes of thick black smoke were seen billowing into the sky as the cows torturously remained trapped inside.
Castro County Sheriff Sal Rivera said: “There’s some that survived, there’s some that are probably injured to the point where they’ll have to be destroyed.”
Rescuers then discovered a female farm worker stuck inside the building, who was rushed to a hospital in Lubbock in critical condition.
Authorities were left stunned by the staggering number of charred animal corpses that were found in the remains of the milking shed.
It is estimated that a whopping 18,000 cows perished in the fire – the equivalent of around 20 per cent of the cattle slaughtered in the US each day.
The enormous blast has proved costly in more ways than one for the family who owns the farm, as the loss of the cattle is said to have set them back an eye-watering £28million.
It marks the biggest single-incident death of cattle in the country since the Animal Welfare Institute, a Washington-based animal advocacy group, began tracking barn and farm fires in 2013.
Policy associate Allie Granger said: “In the past, we have seen fires involving several hundred cows at a time, but nothing anything near this level of mortality.
“It is hard to imagine anything worse than being burned alive.”
The 18,000 fatalities – a mix of Holstein and Jersey cows – represented about 90 per cent of the dairy farm’s total herd.
Each animal is thought to be worth around £1,600, according to USA Today.
Investigators believe that the deadly explosion may have started with a machine known as a “honey badger”, which was described as a “vacuum that sucks the manure and water out”.
Sheriff Rivera said: “Possibly [it] got overheated and probably the methane and things like that ignited and spread out and exploded.”
Locals claimed the sound of the explosion and sight of the column of smoke could be witnessed from miles around, according to KFDA News Channel 10.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Dimmitt Mayor Roger Malone said. “I don’t think it’s ever happened before around here. It’s a real tragedy.”
He said he has taken emergency management courses that teach how to dispose of animal carcasses after a disaster – but not at this scale.
“How do you dispose of 18,000 carcasses?” he said. “That’s something you just don’t run into very much.”
South Fork Dairy, which employs up to 60 people, is situated in Castro County – one of the largest dairy hubs in the US.
“This is a devastating loss that will impact many,” Castro County Judge Mandy Gfeller told CNN.
“While the loss of so many animals and property is devastating I am so thankful that there was no loss of human life. I am praying for restoration for South Fork Dairy.”
Nearly 6.5 million animals have been killed in barn fires since 2013, according to the Animal Welfare Institute. Just 7,385 of those were cows.
State officials now face the gruelling task of cleaning up the farm.
Fire crews battled for hours to subdue the flames on Monday[/caption]
