Two people were killed and more than 30 injured Thursday evening when a chemical was released at a Deer Park industrial plant.
An operating unit at the Pemex Deer Park refinery released the poisonous gas hydrogen sulfide at 4:40 p.m., officials at the facility said.
Multiple ambulances and emergency vehicles could be seen at the scene.
Teams from the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office and Harris County Pollution Control Services responded to the situation and were monitoring air quality.
For a time, authorities warned nearby residents to stay inside and close doors and windows.
“Some members of the community may see flaring as we safely contain the situation,” a Pemex Deer Park spokesperson said in a statement.
One of the people injured was transported to a hospital by a helicopter, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.
Pemex said in a statement that investigations were underway and that operations had been “proactively halted” at two units with the aim of mitigating the impact.
City officials issued a shelter-in-place order but lifted it hours later after air monitoring showed no risk to the surrounding community, Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton said. Hydrogen sulfide is a foul-smelling gas can be toxic at high levels.
“Other than the smell, we have not had any verifiable air monitoring to support that anything got outside the facility,” Mouton said.
Television news crews showed multiple ambulances and emergency vehicles at the scene. Gonzalez had originally posted on the social platform X that one person was transported to a hospital by helicopter, but officials later said at a news conference that no one was airlifted.
The leak caused the second shelter-in-place orders in Deer Park in the span of weeks. Last month, a pipeline fire that burned for four days forced surrounding neighborhoods to evacuate.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
