At least 15 dead and 160 injured from an explosion in Texas at a fertilizer plant in a rural town Wednesday.

West Texas, a town of 2,800 people, had an explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. Hundreds of firefighters and first responders have been trying to help recover people in the blaze since Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"They are still getting injured folks out, and they are evacuating people from their homes," Waco police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton said early Thursday morning."At some point this will turn into a recovery operation, but at this point, we are still in search and rescue," he said.

The Wednesday night blast shook houses 50 miles away and measured as a magnitude 2.1 seismic event, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

West Mayor Tommy Muska told reporters that his city needs the prayers of everyone.

"We've got a lot of people who are hurt, and there's a lot of people, I'm sure, who aren't gonna be here tomorrow," Muska said in a press conference. "We're gonna search for everybody. We're gonna make sure everybody's accounted for. That's the most important thing right now."

Officials told the Times that the incident is being treated as a crime scene, but is expected to be an industrial accident.

A fire was reported at 6 p.m. Wednesday and by 8 p.m., the plant exploded.

Besides the fertilizer plant, anything within a four-mile radius of the plant is being considered a part of the danger zone from the explosion.

A middle school, 50 homes and a nursing home were hit by the blaze.

"It was like a nuclear bomb went off," Muska said. "Big old mushroom cloud."