1 killed in blast at Arkansas trucking plant

An explosion at a trucking plant in the U.S. state of Arkansas has left one person dead Friday, authorities said. The blast happened Friday morning at a trucking plant in Knoxville, according to a news release from the Johnson County sheriff' s office. Knoxville is a city in Johnson County in northwest Arkansas. Several workers were "using a propane torch to loosen ball valves on the back of the tanker trucks," authorities said in the press release. A worker named Daniel Rice was killed when a tank he was working on exploded. He was hit by "a metal hatch plate that was blown off the back of one of the tanks," officials said. The explosion could be felt up to 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away from the scene, the release stated. No other workers were injured in the blast. The tanker that exploded was designed to haul wastewater from drilling sites. Authorities believe the explosion happened as a result of the buildup of methane gas inside the tank. No other information is available so far.