The huge blast at the Howard and Sons Pyrotechnics factory in Wallerwang on Saturday night, which was heard 30 kilometres away, has hit the New Year celebration plans of several major Australian cities.

Police suspect the explosion may have been caused by someone who entered illegally and they also fear that the intruder may have been killed, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Fireworks stored in a shipping container exploded and an inspection of the site from the edge of a safety exclusion zone had revealed that other containers had been opened.

“There’s a lot of debris and rubble that has to be sorted through yet, to try and find if there are persons inside, but I can tell you there were no people legitimately on the site when the explosion occurred,” said police superintendent Greg Martin. A director of the family-owned company, Andrew Howard, said he was extremely suspicious about what caused the fireworks to explode.