Officials said at least nine people were still missing hours after the explosion that leveled a building in West Reading. PHILADELPHIA - Investigators looking for the cause of a deadly explosion that leveled part of a Pennsylvania chocolate factory faced an even more difficult task Monday as they combed through wreckage that was extensively picked apart and moved around during the intensive weekend search for victims and survivors.Seven people were killed and several others wounded in the powerful blast at the R.M Palmer Co.
plant in West Reading, Pennsylvania, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia. One survivor was pulled from the rubble hours after the explosion rattled windows and shook houses.With the recovery effort now over, attention turned to identifying the cause — a task complicated by the jumbled wreckage."The No.
1 goal of this, once the fire was out, gas stopped, is to look for the victims," Pennsylvania State Police Master Trooper David Beohm said at a news conference Monday afternoon. "So with that, when they picked the building apart with the excavator, yes, it makes it really hard then to try to figure out things. ...
It makes it really difficult to try to come up with a cause."Authorities declined to address reports that plant workers had detected an odor of gas before the explosion.