One man died and another was injured seriously when an explosion occurred Aug. 28 at a Bayer CropScience plant in the Kanawha Valley. Fumes from a fire at the plant prompted an emergency alert telling thousands of residents of the area not to leave their homes.

Yet for several hours, some at Bayer refused to provide emergency officials with information regarding the blast. That is unacceptable. If there is not a law in place providing penalties for such irresponsible - possibly life-threatening -behavior, they ought to be enacted as soon as possible.

Recordings of telephone calls between the plant and the Kanawha County emergency dispatching center were released last week. They include conversation in which a plant employee told a dispatcher that an emergency was in progress - but that the company had instructed him not to provide details.

According to a published report, Bayer has noted that the telephone calls were only part of their communications with emergency officials. Perhaps so. Obviously, a full and complete accounting of those communications needs to be obtained.

Still, the fact remains that a plant worker told the dispatcher he could not provide details of the emergency - at a time when minutes counted in responding to it.

We in the Ohio Valley have had a good relationship with the chemical industry, including Bayer. But we also are aware of the hazards of plants producing certain types of chemicals - and about potential threats to public safety. It appears that such a threat was not handled well in Kanawha County - and state officials need to learn more about just what happened. Then, they need to determine whether laws were broken - and whether new ones need to be enacted.