A non-denominational service was held at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church on Thursday night. The Rev. Ed Karasek said that the town "will never be the same, but we will persevere."

He added: "Our hearts are hurting, our hearts are broken."

Despite the lack of official confirmation, The Associated Press reported that the names of the dead were becoming known in the town of 2,800.

"Word gets around quick in a small town," said local resident Brenda Covey, 46. 

Earlier, Sgt. Jason Reyes of the Texas Department of Public Safety said he could confirm that "we do have fatalities," but he refused to give any numbers.

"You've got to understand, we are still in a search-and-rescue mode right now," he said.

Matt Cawthon, chief deputy sheriff of McLennan County, said Thursday afternoon that the presence of dangerous chemicals at West Fertilizer Co., including ammonium nitrate, was significantly slowing the investigation.

Agents from the state Commission on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were combing the scene "to determine just how dangerous it is for our first responders," he said.

The cause of the fire and explosion remained undetermined, but there was no indication of criminal activity, Waco police Sgt. William Patrick Swanton said. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it was sending the same National Response Team that worked this week's explosion at the Boston Marathon to lead the Texas investigation. 

"We do not know the number of any fatalities. We do not know where the fire started. We do not know the cause," Assistant State Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner said.

Dozens of homes wrecked
The blast, which shook the ground with the force of a magnitude-2.1 earthquake, all but obliterated a five- to six-block radius around the plant, where two massive tanks held highly pressurized anhydrous ammonia. It wrecked about 50 to 75 homes and a middle school. A 50-unit apartment complex had its walls torn off and its roof peeled back.

Slideshow: Fertilizer plant explosion in Texas

Rod Aydelotte / AP

The huge blast rocked a small Texas town Wednesday, April 16, killing at least five people and destroying nearby homes.

Launch slideshow

"It just sucked you in and just threw you to the ground," resident Crystal Jerigan told TODAY, describing how she grabbed her two daughters out of a car and dived through the front door of their house.

"It was very difficult coming into work knowing my family may be coming into the hospital," Melissa James, a social worker at Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, said Thursday. Her relatives suffered only minor injuries.

The blast could be felt for miles.

Sammy Chavez of West, who ran to the West Rest Haven nursing home despite being injured, told NBC 5 of Dallas that he found a surreal scene.

"I just saw the explosion, and then after that I took off running, and then I saw the West home, and people you know were buried under the West home. The West home was gone," Chavez said. "It was gone. The school's gone. The apartments are gone. It's horrible."

Mariah Garcia/photo via NBCDFW.com

Smoke rises from the scene of a fertilizer plant explosion near Waco, Texas, on Wednesday, April 17..

Derrick Hurtt was in his truck, recording the fire from about 300 yards, when the flames erupted with a blinding flash, followed by a towering pillar of smoke.

He caught the explosion on his camera, along with the panicked screams of his daughter Khloey, who begged him to drive away.

"I'm pretty sure it lifted the truck off the ground. It just blew me over on top of her," Hurtt said on TODAY. "It all happened so quick that things kind of went black for a moment."

'It is devastated'
West has only about 2,700 residents, but the affected area is a densely populated neighborhood, and "it is devastated," Cawthon said.

But while the toll is "immense," said Abbott, the attorney general, "the other thing we clearly saw in touring around West is the clear sign of hope. You can see hope in the eyes of the rescue workers. ... You can see already the beginnings of the community working to piece itself back together."

State officials said the plant had been at the site since 1962. Its state authorization lapsed at some point, but after a 2006 complaint about a smell of ammonia in the air, it came back into compliance, and there have been no more issues.

Satellite view showing the location of West Fertilizer Co. in West, Texas.

Police said that soon after the blast there was one possible report of a looting incident but that it was "not rampant," and no one was being allowed into the search area.

There were also reports of price gouging, said Abbott, who promised that profiteers "will be facing a lawsuit by the Texas attorney general."

In a statement, President Barack Obama thanked first responders, pledged support and offered prayers.

"A tight-knit community has been shaken, and good, hard-working people have lost their lives," Obama said.

Michelle Acevedo, Gabe Gutierrez, Edgar Zuniga Jr. and Matthew DeLuca of NBC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related:

Texas fertilizer plant also stored explosive chemical used in Oklahoma City bomb

Mayor of Texas town rocked by explosion: 'We're going to fight back'

'The whole street is gone': Bloodied eyewitnesses describe Texas explosion horror

West Fertilizer had few violations, was pillar of community

Texas fertilizer tragedy: How to help

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 18, 2013 8:56 PM EDT

At least five to 15 people were killed and more than 160 wounded when a large fertilizer plant exploded, rocking the small Texas town of West late Wednesday. The blast destroyed dozens of homes and businesses, police said. See some of the dramatic amateur video and photos that have poured in via social media. Check back for more on this developing story. 

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 18, 2013 9:00 AM EDT

Shocked and bloodied eyewitnesses in the small Texas town of West described the overwhelming power of a Texas fertilizer plant explosion that killed between 5 and 15 people, injured scores more and caused extensive damage to dozens of local homes, a nursing home, and a middle school.

“The school’s gone, the apartments are gone,” resident Sammy Chavez, wearing a blood-soaked t-shirt, told reporters. He was sitting in his truck watching the fire when the sudden, ear-shattering blast sent shards of glass spinning through the air. “It’s just horrible.”

Other residents of the town of 2,700 ran from their homes after the blast filled the sky with a massive fireball around 8 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

Crystal Jerigan rushed outside her home about 15 blocks from the blazing West Fertilizer Company plant after hearing the sirens of emergency responders. She was in the driveway with her two daughters preparing to flee when the plant exploded.

“About the time that I got to the car, you could hear the boom and within seconds, it just sucked you in and just threw you to the ground,” Jerigan told TODAY.

Another local resident, Derrick Hurtt, who was sitting in his truck with his daughter Khloey taping the burning plant, caught the moment of the blast on camera. He estimated he was at least 300 yards from the plant, but that was still too close.

In his video, Hurtt can be heard asking his daughter if she is OK.

“Please get out of here, please get out of here, dad please get out of here,” the young girl can be heard saying. “I can’t hear anything.”

“I’m pretty sure it lifted the truck off the ground,” Hurtt said on TODAY. “It just blew me over on top of her. It all happened so quick that things just kind of went black for a moment.”

Another bloodied, shaken resident, identified as local EMS doctor George Smith, told reporters: “There was just a major, major explosion. The windows came in on me, the roof came in on me, the ceiling came in. We lost all communication when the power went out.”

“The whole street is gone,” he added.

Even standing several blocks from the plant, residents said they were knocked back by the terrific shock that radiated from the plant explosion.

“A nearby nursing home is really bad, there’s an apartment complex and the school that caught fire,” Crystal Anthony, who serves on the town’s school board of trustees, told the Waco Tribune-Herald. “We’ve been moving patients out of the nursing home and taking them to the football field and gymnastics building on Davis Street.”

Other residents speculated about the cause of the explosion that wiped out homes and killed friends in the town about 20 miles north of Waco.

“It was a small fire and then water got sprayed on the ammonium nitrate, and it exploded just like the Oklahoma City bomb,” local hotel clerk Jason Shelton told the Dallas Morning News. “I live about a thousand feet from it and it blew my screen door off and my back windows. There’s houses leveled that were right next to it.”

“That whole side of town looks like a disaster,” Bill Manolakis told the paper. “Who in their right mind sticks a damn plant next to houses?”

Bill Bohannan was visiting his parents in one of the houses near the plant, and witnessed the devastating explosion.

“I said, ‘This thing is going to blow,’” as he hurried his parents into the car, Bohannan told the Waco Tribune-Herald. “I was standing next to my car with my fiancée, waiting for my parents to come out and [the plant] exploded. It knocked us into the car.”

“Every house within about four blocks is blown apart,” Bohannan said.

Related:

Hundreds injured in explosion at Texas fertilizer plant

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 18, 2013 4:14 AM EDT