Explosion fears bar Louisiana residents from homes after train derailment

Smoke rises from the site where a freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed on Saturday

May 29, 2000
Web posted at: 2:01 a.m. EDT (0601 GMT)

In this story: Shelters opened after evacuation ordered Two unexploded cars close to five cars in flames RELATED STORIES, SITES

EUNICE, Louisiana (CNN) -- It could be days before the 2,500 residents of this Louisiana town will be allowed to return to their homes after 30 freight cars of a Union Pacific train were derailed on Saturday and 10 exploded.

Authorities are holding off allowing residents to return because they are concerned that one of the train's cars, carrying acrylic acid, could also explode.

Clouds of thick, black smoke were sent into the air after several explosions rocked the area. Residents three miles away from the crash site felt the blasts.

Louisiana State Police Sgt. Chris Guillory said on Sunday, "There are a few hot spots still burning, but most of the fire is out now."

A survey team managed to get near the crash site on Sunday and its members reported that the tank carrying acid did not appear to be ruptured.

But the chemical generates its own heat and officials feared that it could still explode.

At least 10 freight cars caught fire after a train derailed near Eunice, Louisiana on Saturday

Shelters opened after evacuation ordered

Representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board were also on the scene.

Three shelters were opened in the town on Saturday evening after police ordered a mandatory evacuation.

Law enforcement officials kept people outside a perimeter set up 2 1/2 miles from the accident site, which was a mile west of the town. Guillory said rice farming was the major occupation here.

Two of the train's cars rolled into a bayou, which officials dammed on Sunday to prevent chemicals leaching into water supplies. Guillory said tests showed no contamination.

The engineer and conductor of the train escaped uninjured, while three people complaining of respiratory problems sought care in an area hospital, said Mark Davis, a spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad.

He added that there was no reason to believe their complaints were related to the accident. One of them was admitted for treatment of asthma.

Two unexploded cars close to five cars in flames

Two unexploded tank cars filled with flammable liquid were sitting amid five tankers still in flames. One tank was filled with acrylic acid, the other with dichloropropane. Both are flammable and toxic.

"We'll have to deal with those cars before we can begin doing anything with any of those other cars," Guillory said.

He also said it could be "several days" before residents would be allowed home.

Union Pacific officials paid for lodging for 725 people on Saturday night, said Davis, and were setting up an 800 number to coordinate help among the displaced residents

Officials have been monitoring the fire by flying over it every two hours in helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

Davis said there was no immediate indication why the train jumped the tracks.

Guillory said state and federal environmental-quality representatives were monitoring the air, but detected no contaminants from the fire.

"Whatever chemicals caught on fire and burned yesterday were consumed in the fire," he said.

Davis said the train was carrying about a dozen hazardous materials, including four flammable liquids, a tank of antifreeze, a car of alumina -- used in polishing compounds - - and five cars of plastic pellets, used to make plastic food wrap and plastic containers.

The train had been traveling from Freeport, Texas, to Livonia, Louisiana, when the derailment happened just before 1 p.m.

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Union Pacific Railroad
La. Department of Environmental Quality
American Red Cross
City Of Eunice, La. - Police Department

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