Firefighters Search Sugar Refinery

Firefighters continued the delicate job Saturday of searching the Georgia sugar refinery where four employees were killed, looking for four missing workers.

Port Wentworth Fire Chief Greg Long said heavy equipment had to be brought in to provide supports for two floors at the Imperial Sugar refinery near Savannah, CNN reported.

Long said he still hoped some of the missing workers might be alive.

I’m still hopeful, he said. It’s still a rescue operation until it’s proven that it’s not.

Firefighters found four bodies Friday. Late in the day, the building was still smoldering, 24 hours after the explosion.

To get to three large silos, firefighters had to cross the main factory building, Long said. The fourth floor of the factory, used for refining and packing sugar, collapsed in the explosion.

Twenty people burned in the explosion remained hospitalized. One, with burns over 95 percent of his body, was in critical condition at the Medical College of Georgia, while the others were at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center. Both hospitals are in Augusta.