MARCH 6, 2015
GALENA, ILLINOIS
A freight train loaded with crude oil derailed in northern
Illinois on Thursday, bursting into flames and prompting officials to suggest
that everyone within 1 mile evacuate, authorities said.
The BNSF Railway train derailed about 1:05 p.m. in a rural
area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi, according to company
spokesman Andy Williams. The train had 103 cars loaded with crude oil, along
with two buffer cars loaded with sand. A cause for the derailment hadn’t yet
been determined. The typical causes are lack of maintenance of the tracks, failure to properly inspect them for defects, wear and tear of the tears, excessive speed, recent track failure due to erosion, ice on the tracks, human error, and several other causes.
No injuries were reported.
The derailment occurred 3 miles south of Galena in a wooded
and hilly area that is a major tourist attraction and the home of former
President Ulysses S. Grant. The Jo Daviess County Sheriff’s Department
confirmed the train was transporting oil from the Northern Plains’
Bakken region.
Williams said six cars derailed, two of which burst into
flames and continued to burn into the night.
Firefighters could only access the derailment site by a bike
path, said Galena Assistant Fire Chief Bob Conley. They attempted to fight a
small fire at the scene but were unable to stop the flames.
Firefighters had to pull back for safety reasons and were
allowing the fire to burn itself out, Conley said.
The derailment comes amid increased public concern about the
safety of shipping crude by train.
Since 2008, derailments of oil trains in the U.S. and Canada
have seen 70,000-gallon tank cars break open and ignite on multiple occasions,
resulting in huge fires. A train carrying Bakken crude crashed in a Quebec town
in 2013, killing 47 people. Last month, a train carrying 3 million gallons of
North Dakota crude derailed in a West Virginia snowstorm, shooting fireballs
into the sky, leaking oil into a river tributary and forcing hundreds of
families to evacuate.
The ruptures and fires have prompted the administration of
President Barack Obama to consider requiring upgrades such as thicker tanks,
shields to prevent tankers from crumpling, rollover protections and electronic
brakes that could make cars stop simultaneously, rather than slam into
each other.
In a statement, the Federal Railroad Administration said it
was sending investigators to the Illinois derailment site and that the agency
will conduct a “thorough investigation” to determine the cause.
Source: AP