An explosion Friday evening at the R.M. Palmer Chocolate Factory in West Reading, Pennsylvania, left two confirmed dead and eight injured, along with five others still missing.

A sixth missing person was recovered alive from underneath the rubble overnight. 

The blast, and a subsequent four-alarm fire, broke out at the facility just before 5 p.m. Friday. Weather cameras from WTXF-TV, a Philadelphia Fox affiliate, captured the explosion ripping through the roof of a building.

Preliminary theories from officials suggest a gas leak was responsible for the explosion, but investigation and rescue efforts at the factory continue Saturday. Building #2 at the R.M. Palmer factory is destroyed, and there is damage to Building #1. 

“It’s pretty leveled, unfortunately there’s not too much to be able to salvage from it. In the front, with the church and the apartments, the explosion was so big that it moved that building four feet forward,” West Reading Mayor Samantha Kaag, herself a firefighter, said.

The area was not evacuated, but Mayor Kaag told residents to stay out of a one-block radius zone around the factory site. 

West Reading residents described hearing — and feeling — the blast.

“It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. It literally felt like the ground fell out from underneath you. The whole house shook and my dogs froze, they couldn’t move, it was scary,” West Reading resident Kristen Wisniewski told WPVI-TV, a Philadelphia ABC affiliate.
There was some confusion Saturday morning as to the amount of confirmed fatalities. 
 
While the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, going off numbers from Berks County, said there were five people killed, Mayor Kaag and West Reading officials said that figure was inaccurate.

Of the eight people initially hospitalized, five were treated and on their way to release, two were admitted in “fair condition,” and the one other person was transferred to another facility, Tower Health spokesperson Jessica Bezler told the Associated Press.

None of the identities of the victims, whether living, dead, or injured, have yet been disclosed.

R.M. Palmer has not yet responded to a request for comment. The company was founded in West Reading in 1948, and has been headquartered there since.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.