Ohio officials say there is no indication of any public health risk from the derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train between Dayton and Columbus, the second company train derailment in the state in a month.
Norfolk Southern and Clark County officials say 28 of the 212 cars on the southbound train, including four empty tankers, derailed around 4:45 p.m. Saturday in Springfield Township, near a business park and campus. county fair. Springfield is about 46 miles (74 kilometers) west of the state capital of Columbus.
As a precaution, residents living within 1,000 feet (305 meters) were asked to shelter in place and responding firefighters deployed the county’s hazmat team as a precaution, but authorities said the early Sunday that there was “no indication of injury or risk to public health at this time.”
A team from Norfolk Southern, the hazardous materials team and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency “each independently examined the accident site and verified that there was no evidence of a spill at the site,” authorities said.
Authorities confirmed Sunday afternoon that no hazardous materials were involved in the derailment.
Many of the cars that derailed were empty.
However, Norfolk Southern general manager Kraig Barner said a couple of other cars on the train heading from Bellevue, Ohio, to Birmingham, Alabama, were carrying liquid propane and a couple more were carrying ethanol. The rest of the train was made up of mixed cargo, such as steel and finished cars, he said.
“Many of the cars that derailed were empty cars,” Barner said.
Authorities said two of the four empty tank cars that derailed had been carrying diesel exhaust fluid and the other two had residual amounts of polyacrylamide water solution, which Barner says is a commonly used additive in wastewater treatment.
County officials say environmental officials have confirmed the derailment is not near a protected water source, meaning there is no risk to public water systems or private wells. The shelter-in-place order affected only four or five homes, authorities said.
No injuries were reported to the public or to the train’s two-person crew, he said. The cause of the derailment is under investigation and the findings will be turned over to the Federal Railroad Administration, Barner said.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Saturday night that President Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had called him “to offer him help from the federal government.”
On February 3, 38 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine in northeast Ohio near Pennsylvania derailed and several of the train cars carrying hazardous materials burned.
Although no one was injured, nearby neighborhoods in both states were in danger. The accident prompted the evacuation of about half of the town’s roughly 5,000 residents, an ongoing multi-governmental emergency response, and lingering concerns among villagers about long-term health impacts.
[Con información de The Associated Press y Reuters]
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and activate notifications, or follow us on social networks: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
