Explosion destroys office and injures 3
By Jeff Zeleny___
Editor
GRESHAM — A Tuesday mid
afternoon explosion and fire at the
farmer’s cooperative elevator office
here gutted the building and sent
three people to the hospital.
At 1:52 p.m., an explosion rocked
the Farmer’s Cooperative Business
Association in Gresham, a commu
nity of about 250 located 24 miles
northeast of York. Witnesses said at
least one worker was thrown from the
one-story building, which was de
stroyed in the blaze.
Ken Crook of Rising City, man
ager of the co-op, suffered burns to
the upper part of his body. He was
transferred from York General Hos
pital to St. Elizabeth Hospital's burn
unit in Lincoln, where he was listed
in critical condition Tuesday evening,
a St. Elizabeth's spokeswoman said.
Kurt Rhodes of Gresham, who also
works at the elevator, sustained mul
tiple fractures to his back. He was
transferred from York General Hos
pital to Lincoln General Hospital
Tuesday afternoon. Rhodes was trans
ferred to Bergan Mercy Hospital in
Omaha late Tuesday evening, a Lin
coln General spokeswoman said,
where he was to undergo specialized
back surgery.
The explosion occurred during the
height of the fall harvest season.
Records and other debris were thrown
from the building and scattered around
the co-op.
Ed Schultze, an area farmer, also
was injured in the explosion. Wit
nesses said Schultze was sitting in a
tractor which was parked on a scale in
front of the office. He was transported
to a hospital, witnesses said, but his
condition was unknown Tuesday
evening.
The explosion remained under in
vestigation late Tuesday, said
Gresham Fire Chief Tom Bredwcll.
Although the cause of the explosion
was not known. Bredwcll said, offi
’ —————— Gerik Parmele/DN
Fire fighters work to extinguish a hot spots after an explosion ripped through a grain elevator office early Tuesday afternoon
In Qresham Nebraska. The explosion Injured two people and completely destroyed the office.
cials were investigating a propane
gas line near the building.
“Until the fire marshall has con
cluded the investigation, I can't tell
you anything.” he said at the explo
sion site.
Brcdwell said he arrived on the
scene about 15 mi nutes after the blast
and smoke engulfed the building.
Witnesses said the structure crumbled
slowly as the fire was extinguished.
Bob Sleight of the state fire
marshall's office sifted through what
was left of the 30 foot by 40 foot
building Tuesday afternoon, as
firefighters from Gresham, York.
Waco and Utica doused the smolder
ing rubble.
News...
in a Minute
Palace purged in Haiti
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Hundreds of U S. troops took
over the National Palace on Tuesday, sweeping away the last vestiges
ofHaiti’s military-backed administration before President Jcan-Bertrand
Aristide's return.
About 500 American soldiers entered the sprawling white building
and other ministries, escorting out employees of the government set up
by the military leaders who overthrew Aristide in 1991.
Aristide's Cabinet ministers fired all employees hired under a
civilian figurehead government installed in May by military strongman
Raoul Ccdras, who resigned Monday.
“From now on, we the people are responsible for the country,” said.
At dusk, about 2.000 joyfiil people paraded outside the National
Palace.
Game theorists win Nobel
STOCKHOLM. Sweden (AP) — Two Americans and a German
won the Nobel prize in economics Tuesday for pioneering work that
shows companies do business, governments make decisions and armies
fight battles much the way people play poker and chess.
Sharing the $930,000 pnze arc Hungarian-born John C. Harsanyi.
a retired professor from the University of California at Berkeley; John
F. Nash, a mathematician at Princeton University; and Reinhard Selten
of the University of Bonn.
The physics and chemistry prizes will be announced Wednesday,
followed on Thursday by the literature prize. The peace prize will be
announced Friday in Oslo, Norway.
Shuttle returns with 3-D images
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — Space shuttle
Endeavour and its six astronauts glided to a landing in the Mojave
Desert on Tuesday after 11 days spent mapping the Earth in 3-D with
the most powerful civilian radar ever flown.
The spacecraft orbited at an unusually low altitude — as low as 127
miles — as it took a path stretching from the Aleutian Islands in the
north to near the Antarctic Circle.
Astronaut Thomas Jones said the mission gathered “new facts about
the geology of the Earth” and tested a new technique offering “poten
tially a way to map the 60 percent of the Earth’s surface that's really not
well surveyed at all.”
During the environmental research mission, the radar was used to
study mountains, volcanoes, oceans, deserts and forests.
Thick clouds at Cape Canaveral, Fla., forced Endeavour to divert to
a mid-morning landing at the opposite end of the country.
NASA prefers to land shuttles at Cape Canaveral to save the $1
million it costs to fly the spacecraft back to Florida atop a jumbo jet.
ALies continue troop build-up
across the border from Iraq
KUWAIT (AP) — Skeptical of
Saddam Hussein's intentions, the
United States and its allies pursued
their massive military buildup in the
Persian Gulf on Tuesday despite signs
that Iraqi troops were pulling away
from Kuwait.
Washington was assembling its
biggest force since the 1991 Gulf War
to face down the Iraqi leader: Tens of
thousands of Americans were still
ordered into the Gulf along with hun
dreds of the most potent U.S. aircraft
and warships.
Five days after the crisis began,
“thcrc'sfairly broad movement’’ away
from combat positions by the 80,000
Iraqis assembled at the Kuwaiti bor
der. Gen. John Shalikashvili, chair
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
at the Pentagon.
“Considerable (Iraqi) units” re
main in the area, he said.
The Iraqi deployment toward the
Kuwaiti border “wasn’t just some in
nocent exercise that they were on and
we misread it,” Shalikashvili said.
“I’m not at all prepared to say the
crisis is over in any way.”
Baghdad claimed its forces began
moving Monday night to a position
north of Basra. 35 miles north of the
“I ’m not at all prepared
to say the crisis is over in
any way. ”
■
GEN. JOHN
SHAUKASHVILI
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff *
Kuwaiti border.
The official Iraqi News Agency,
monitored in Cyprus, quoted Foreign
Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahhaf
as saying the pullback was largely
completed Tuesday. Only two bri
gades, about 8,(K)0 men, were still
near the border and would withdraw
soon, Sahhaf said.
Another agency dispatch said the
Foreign Ministry has asked the Rus
sian and Chinese embassies to send
their military attaches to verify the
pullback.
Journalists on the road to Basra
said troops and military equipment
were moving in both directions, with
heavy artillery heading south.
Baghdad had claimed the buildup
was a routine rotation and training
exercise. But the mobilization was
alarmingly similar to the one that
preceded Iraq’s August 1990 inva
sion of Kuwait.
Kuwait's information minister.
Sheik Saud al-Sabah, said Tuesday
night “there is evidence that they are
reinforcing, not withdrawingso there
fore we should not in any instance
take these statements as valid.”
Earlier, he told The Associated
Press, “We cannot tolerate this kind
of cat-and-mouse game bein$ played.
Saddam has always been playing these
games with us for the last two years.
The United States suggested im
posing a wide off-limits zone on
Saddam’s ground forces near
Kuwait's border.
“There’s a no-fly zone now (in
southern Iraq) but we are looking at
ways to kind of move them back and
make sure that they stay behind a
certain area so that we are not faced
with this kind of thing again,” said
Madeleine Albright, the U.S. ambas
sador to the United Nations.
Nebraskan
Editor JeffZeieny
472-1766
Managing Editor Anal* Brunkow
Assoc. News Editors Jeffrey Robb
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