WEST READING (AP) – Workers at a Berks County chocolate factory smelled rotten eggs before a powerful natural gas explosion that leveled one building and heavily damaged another, killing seven people. That’s according to federal safety officials, who released a preliminary report on the March 24 blast. The National Transportation Safety Board’s five-paragraph account of the fatal explosion confirmed that employees had detected an odor of natural gas at the R.M. Palmer Company in West Reading. Federal investigators have been focusing on the role of a natural gas pipeline as they look for the cause of the explosion. Workers at the plant have accused R.M. Palmer of ignoring warnings of a natural gas leak, saying the plant should have been evacuated.
