A tornado damaged a Pfizer pharmaceutical plant located 60 miles east of Raleigh, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
The manufacturing plant was damaged by a tornado that touched down near Rocky Mount. Pfizer said there were no serious injuries, The Associated Press reported.
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Pfizer tweeted Wednesday employees at the plant were able to follow protocol and evacuate, with everyone being safe and accounted for.
“We are assessing the situation to determine the impact on production,” a second tweet from Pfizer stated. “Our thoughts are with our colleagues, our patients, and the community as we rebuild from this weather incident.”
According to the Pfizer website, the Rocky Mount plant is one of “the largest sterile injectable facilities in the world,” with almost 25% of the sterile injectables that are used in U.S. hospitals being produced there.
“At this facility, a wide range of products are produced, including anesthesia, analgesia, therapeutics, anti-infectives and neuromuscular blockers. These products are available in small volume presentations, such as ampules, vials and syringes, and large volume presentations, such as IV bags and semi-rigid bottles,” it states.
Over 400 million units are manufactured at the North Carolina plant annually.
Parts of the roof were ripped off in the storm and debris was scattered. In a tweet on Thursday, the National Weather Service stated that the tornado was an EF3 and had peak winds of 150 mph.
The tornado was on the ground for over 16 miles and resulted in 16 injuries, two of them being life threatening. No fatalities have been reported, according to the National Weather Service’s tweet.
The tornado was the first EF3 that has been recorded in central North Carolina in July.
The Raleigh National Weather Service tweeted that the area could see severe weather once again on Thursday, with the biggest threat being damaging winds.
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Contributing: The Associated Press
