Dozens feared dead in Quebec oil-train derailment
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec — Blackened debris, twisted metal and gas leaks hampered rescue workers’ search for perhaps dozens of bodies Tuesday, three days after a runaway oil train smashed into this small lakeside town, incinerating homes, a library and a crowded bar.
Thirteen people were confirmed dead and nearly 40 others still missing in a catastrophe that raised questions about the safety of transporting oil by rail instead of pipeline.
Investigators were zeroing in on whether a blaze on the same train a few hours before the disaster set off the deadly chain of events.
Rescue workers labored to reach the bodies believed to be in the ruins.
“Those sectors are extremely complicated to investigate. There is debris. This is a very risky environment. We have to secure the safety of those working there. We have some hotspots on the scene. There is some gas,” Quebec Provincial Police Sergeant Benoit Richard said.
He said recovery efforts had to be halted briefly Monday for health reasons, and some officers needed to be removed from the scene. He did not elaborate. The bodies that have been recovered were burned so badly they have yet to be identified.
The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train broke loose early Saturday, speeding downhill nearly seven miles (11 kilometers) and jumping the tracks at 63 mph (101 kph) in Lac-Megantic, near the Maine border, investigators said. All but one of the 73 cars were carrying oil. At least five exploded.
The blasts destroyed about 30 buildings, including the Musi-Cafe, a popular bar that was filled at the time, and forced about a third of the town’s 6,000 residents from their homes. Much of the area where the bar stood was burned to the ground. Burned-out cars dotted the landscape.
The same train caught fire hours earlier in a nearby town, and the engine was shut down — standard operating procedure dictated by the train’s owners, Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert said.
Edward Burkhardt, president and CEO of the railway’s parent company, Rail World Inc., suggested that shutting off the locomotive to put out the fire might have disabled the brakes.
“An hour or so after the locomotive was shut down, the train rolled away,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Lambert defended the fire department, saying that the blaze was extinguished within about 45 minutes and that’s when firefighters’ involvement ended.
“The people from MMA told us, `That’s great — the train is secure, there’s no more fire, there’s nothing anymore, there’s no more danger,”’ Lambert said. “We were given our leave, and we left.”
Transportation Safety Board investigator Donald Ross said the locomotive’s black box has been recovered.
“The extent to which (the fire) played into the sequences of events is a focal point of our investigation,” Ross said, but he cautioned that the investigation was still in its early stages.
Burkhardt defended the rail company’s safety record.
CBC reported the company has had eight derailments and 10 spills since 2009, but Burkhardt said it had suffered a series of only small incidents involving tracks in the past few years.
The blast has raised questions about the safety of the tanker cars involved in the crash. The cars are known as DOT-111, Ross told The Associated Press.
The DOT-111 is a staple of the American freight rail fleet. But its flaws have been noted as far back as a 1991 safety study. Its steel shell is so thin that it is prone to puncture in an accident, potentially spilling cargo that can catch fire, explode or contaminate the environment.
The derailment also raised questions about the safety of Canada’s growing practice of transporting oil by train, and is sure to bolster arguments in favor of a proposed oil pipeline running from Canada across the U.S. — a project that Canadian officials badly want.