Quebec Train Accident: 20 Confirmed Dead; 30 Presumed Dead

[FSTargetDrone]

Story:

50 people still missing in Lac-Mégantic

By Janet Bagnall, The Gazette July 10, 2013 8:32 PM



Remains of buildings and houses with melted siding at the scene of the train explosion in the town of Lac-Mégantic, 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke on Wednesday, July 10, 2013. A portion of a train carrying crude oil separated, derailed and exploded in the town of Lac-Mégantic releasing oil into the river and Mégantic lake on Saturday, July 6.

Photograph by: Dario Ayala , The Gazette



This photo provided July 8, 2013 by Sûreté du Québec, shows wrecked oil tankers and debris from a runaway train that derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada. The death toll in Lac-Mégantic rose to 13 on Monday, two days after the runaway oil tanker train derailed and exploded, flattening part of the small Quebec town, the coroner said. Police also told reporters that the number of people reported missing has climbed to about 50, while environmental officials warned that 100,000 litres of oil spilled in the disaster was headed for the Saint Lawrence River.

Photograph by: HO, AFP/Getty Images


LAC-MÉGANTIC/MONTREAL — The Sûreté du Québec has raised the confirmed death toll of Saturday's rail disaster in Lac-Mégantic to 20 people, and lowered the total number of people missing is down to 50 from an earlier estimate of 60.

Also Wednesday, the coroner's office announced it has identified a first victim. Spokesperson Geneviève Guilbault refused to make the victim's name public, saying the family had just been informed. Guilbault said this first identification, coming within a few days of the July 6 disaster, shows that work is progressing well at the site.

The remains of 20 people have been found at the site, she said during a joint news conference with the SQ.

SQ spokesperson Michel Forget said police were able to determine the exact number of victims through interviews and investigative work that put people missing, and now presumed among the dead, at the site of Saturday's train derailment and explosion. Forget said police met Wednesday with the families of the 50 people now considered "in all likelihood" dead. "It was a very emotional moment," he said. Also at the meeting were representatives from the coroner's office, chamber of notaries and social service agencies, he said.

Police may take the families of the 50 presumed dead into what they are calling the Red Zone, the area hardest hit by the explosion and fire, Forget confirmed.

He would not comment on Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway chairman Ed Burkhardt's visit to Lac-Mégantic Wednesday, other than to confirm that police had met with the head of the railway whose 72-car, crude-oil-laden train derailed and exploded at the heart of the picturesque Eastern Townships town. Asked what police had asked Burkhardt, Forget said he would not comment. In response to questions from media, Forget denied that Burkhardt had received any police protection. "Not a single agent," he said.

Forget also refused to comment on what kind of crime police were investigating at what he called the "crime scene."

Guilbault said the coroner's office has four forensic specialists working at the site. She would not discuss their work in any detail, suggesting that the pulverized, incinerated site was enough of a clue to the kind of work being done. She said families have helped with identification by bringing items with DNA and dental records to help in identifying victims.

Victims' remains are being taken to the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale in Montreal, where a team of pathologists and dentists are trying to match DNA and dental records to those reported missing.

Earlier Monday, Forget had told the media that the estimated number of missing hovered around 60. He asked for caution in naming publicly anyone as a likely victim, "out of respect for the families."

Unofficial lists containing names and in many cases photos of people believed to have perished have been circulating, on social media and elsewhere.

The provincial prosecutors' office is being kept advised as the investigation continues, Forget said. He specified that any decision regarding possible charges — including criminal negligence — would be made by prosecutors, not the police.

On Tuesday 1,200 people were allowed back into the homes they had to evacuate shortly after the fire early Saturday.

Lac-Mégantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche said Wednesday that the reintegration of those residents went well, and reiterated the town's precautionary measure of asking people to boil their drinking water at least a minute before using.

Thanks to donors who have flooded the Red Cross with money, a coupon program has been established whereby evacuees can get vouchers every day for food and other supplies.

A public security spokesperson said the Red Cross is setting up a more structured program.

Adam Kovac, Jan Ravensbergen and Anne Sutherland contributed to this report

More related stories here.

As a comparison, 15 people were confirmed to be killed in the ammonium nitrate explosion in West, Texas from this past April.

Story about the railroad's chairman:

Lac-Mégantic: Man from Chicago remains combative

MMA chairman Ed Burkhardt: ‘We think he applied some hand brakes. The question is did he apply enough of them,’

By PEGGY CURRAN, THE GAZETTE July 10, 2013 11:26 PM

LAC-MÉGANTIC — The chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway isn’t talking sabotage anymore.

Ed Burkhardt sounded combative, but at least sporadically contrite Wednesday as he paid his first visit since the derailment and inferno early Saturday that claimed as many as 50 lives and razed the downtown of this lakeside municipality 216 kilometres east of Montreal.

As angry residents shouted insults and threats and journalists bombarded him with questions, the man from Chicago still insisted “a series of events” contributed to the deadly accident.

But after days of contradictory stories that appear to cast blame on local firefighters and mysterious vandals, Burkhardt appeared to settle on a culprit closer to home, saying unfolding evidence suggests engineer Tom Harding failed to apply hand brakes on enough rail cars to stop the runaway train.

Burkhardt said the engineer, whom he did not identify by name, is under police investigation and had been suspended without pay

“He has been our employee for many years. He’s a guy who had a completely clear safety record — up until Saturday,” Burkhardt said.

“We think he applied some hand brakes. The question is did he apply enough of them. He’s told us that he applied 11 hand brakes. Our general feeling now is that that’s not true. Initially, we took him at his word.”

He said it is the engineer’s responsibility to apply hand brakes on both the locomotives and the rail cars.

“We don’t summarily fire people, and we have to go through a process with the union. He is not being paid. I don’t think he will be back working for us again. That is my personal opinion.”

Burkhardt said he is not a legal expert and “can’t draw the line between carelessness and criminal negligence.”

But should a thorough police investigation uncover enough evidence to justify a criminal case, “let the chips fall where they may.”

Burkhardt, who said he has been receiving death threats since the accident, insisted he’s prepared to meet with residents who have lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods — provided the mayor gives the go-ahead.

“I am absolutely with them in their tragedy. I understand their tragedy. I feel personally absolutely rotten about it. But what can you do at this point?”

Yet there were no sign the MMA boss had taken the initiative of showing up at the shelter or gone for a stroll in neighbourhoods where 1,200 residents were allowed to return to their homes Tuesday.

“I find my movements around town to be pretty constricted,” he said, saying his entourage had so far been denied permission to visit the accident zone.

Burkhardt said the firm is ready “to stand up to its corporate responsibilities” to help the community rebuild, regardless of cost.

In retrospect, the decision to leave a train hauling dozens of tanks of crude oil unattended may not have been wise. But he said the railway was following what has long been common practice by railways across the continent.

“You could make the point, especially in the aftermath of this, that that was wrong. But you can go into any province in Canada or any state in the U.S. and you can find trains parked with no crew on them.”

Burkhardt made a vow that the MMA will no longer leave any of its trains unattended.

“For the future, we, and I think the rest of the industry, aren’t going to be leaving these trains unmanned. We’ll take the lead with that. I think the rest of the industry is going to follow.”

Asked to speculate on the potential fallout from the accident — and the costs of compensation and rebuilding the tracks — Burkhardt conceded “it’s not going to be good.” But he said the MMA is committed to finding a way to rebuild the track serving key clients in Lac-Mégantic.

“We have a number of shippers that depend on rail service. These guys have to have rail service or ultimately they will have to lay people off. “ But he said once the track is back up, MMA crews will no longer use Lac-Mégantic for layovers or shift chances.

At times, Burkhardt sounded almost glib, joking with photographers dogging him that “walking backward was very dangerous” and berating reports who shouted questions at the same time.

He dismissed suggestions that he and the company have appeared insensitive to the tragedy and its terrible toll on the community.

“I understand the extreme anger,” he said.

“I hope you have heard my apology about a dozen times. We are making an abject apology to the people in this town.

“Am I compassionate person? I feel absolutely awful about this. I have never been involved in anything remotely approaching this In in my whole life. The devastation here is absolutely awful.”

Burkhardt also rejected claims the company has a dismal safety record, saying it has never before been involved in a main line derailment.

“We’ve actually had quite a reasonable safety record up until Saturday, when we blew it all.”

Is it really common practice to leave trains like this unattended?

[Sea Skimmer]

The more details come out the more bizarre the accident seems to become, above all how the bulk of the tank cars became uncoupled from the locomotives. Break failure of any form does not and cannot explain this, and so far neither investigators nor the railway have offered any explanation for how it might be.I think the reason for this may be pretty simple, it may have been actual sabotage, and they don't want to spook the people they might wish to investigate about it.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yes, it is looking more and more like it was a case of deliberate sabotage. First there was a fire, but modern locomotives including these are fitted with spring-loaded "parking brakes" and handbrakes were in fact set in compliance with Canadian regulation. After the fire in a locomotive that the local fire department responded to, the situation appeared under control. The train rolled, but came to a stop. The locomotives were not involved in the final crash. After the initial roll, the deadly incident happened: the locomotives and a few cars remained in place at Nantes ... And the rest of the cars kept rolling downhill until they were travelling at over sixty miles per hour. It is presently not known what happened: Did someone uncouple the remaining cars to get them clear of the initial fire? But if so, why was there an initial roll, a stop, and then another? Why did the locomotives begin to roll and then come to a stop? If someone was on the scene with the technical competence to oversee separating part of the train as a safety measure, how did it then escape?

It is starting to be really suspicious because nothing released adds up, and the criminal investigation has definitely been commenced. The prospect that someone initially sabotaged the train by setting the fire, and then when the fire department successfully put it out, released cars after they left in a continued effort at sabotage, is at least existent. The area by Nantes where the train was stopped was extremely isolated, and there wasn't a police presence, just fire.

[Lord Revan]

if this was indeed deliberate sabotage then the question is who and more importantly why, I know there's alot of crazies out there but causing a train accident doesn't seem like something anyone would want to do.

[madd0ct0r]

badly planned theft?

I'm not really sure who'd be looking to steal wagons of crude though, that's not something of a low volume high profit nature.

[Broomstick]

if this was indeed deliberate sabotage then the question is who and more importantly why, I know there's alot of crazies out there but causing a train accident doesn't seem like something anyone would want to do.

You wouldn't think so, but a number of years ago my area saw someone deliberately cause a train accident. The details are wildly different (commuter train, no fire, etc.) and it turned out the culprit had mental problems of some sort. In other words, deliberately causing an accident is not unprecedented. As to motive... who knows?

[Zaune]

if this was indeed deliberate sabotage then the question is who and more importantly why, I know there's a lot of crazies out there but causing a train accident doesn't seem like something anyone would want to do.

Neither does shining laser pointers into oncoming traffic in hopes of making someone veer off the road and wrap their car round a streetlamp, or tossing bricks off a bridge across a highway, but both of those are semi-regular occurrences in these parts.

A rail yard in the arse end of nowhere is a bit of an unlikely target for a couple of juvenile delinquents, though. I wonder if the owners had fired anyone for cause recently?

[Alyeska]

Sabotage? I seriously doubt it. In my mind that Engineer is guilty as sin.

The airbreak systems on a train are designed to fail safe. You lose air, they engage. But when you leave the system in an engaged state for too long, IE no air, the pressure eventualy leads to the breaks undoing themselves. Airbreaks are not parking breaks. They will not keep an unattended train from rolling. They are only designed for control of a train that is being "driven".

When you are parking a train and it remains unattended you must put down a certain number of hand brakes. Every single car has a manual break that engages a shoe around the wheels. You have to engage a specific percentage of hand brakes to the car count on the train. This number is mandated by policy with a built in error correct in case of brake failure on a few cars.

Engage hand brakes on a number of cars, that train isn't rolling even if the engine is pulling at full power.

To believe sabotage, one would have to believe that someone walked the length of the train deliberately disengaging every hand brake they could. And they would have to walk both lengths of the train, because hand breaks can be found on either side of the car. Then since we are going down this road, they also deliberately set fire to the engine.

I have a simpler explanation. Bad luck and incompetence. The engineer was lazy and didn't set enough hand brakes, or didn't set any. Relied on the engine remaining running to keep the air pressure going in the airbreak system to ensure that the brakes would remain engaged.

I know that shit happens. I spent 4 months working for BNSF railroad. Policy mandates the hand brakes. But trains parked on "flat" ground frequently never had a single brake engaged when I was sent out to collect them.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Alyeska, that doesn't at all explain the coupling being undone so that most of the cars rolled while the engines and the first few lead cars did not.

[Alyeska]

If the coupling was undone, they would have rolled immediately. Not when the firefighters showed up.

So why did the cars roll when the firefighters showed up? Well, we know they already messed with the train. They turned off the engine. Could one of them have detached the cars? Actually, an untrained individual trying to cross between cars might accidentally disengage the coupling. Which a firefighter might have done when at the scene.

Sabotage still doesn't make sense. If the person knew that much about the train, why not completely disable everything then set fire to it? Make the disaster even worse than it was. And the timing of the events doesn't fit sabotage. Decoupling the cars.....

On further reflection. Decoupling the cars while the airbrakes are still active would not cause the train to detach. OK, it is possible that someone decoupled a the cars before the firefighters show up.

I discount this because in my experience sheer laziness of fully setting hand brakes is something that happens on trains. And there is a probable scenario where firefighters might have been walking the train and someone tried crossing and accidentally decoupled a car in doing so.

[FSTargetDrone]

So are we saying it is indeed standard or at least acceptable procedure to leave these long trains unattended when parked outside of a town? Do you think this will now change, especially when the train is carrying potentially dangerous cargo? The cost of having someone to say with the train overnight seems pretty low when compared the costs of lawsuits, cleanup and so on (which are sure to be huge) with an incident like this.

[Alyeska]

So are we saying it is indeed standard or at least acceptable procedure to leave these long trains unattended when parked outside of a town? Do you think this will now change, especially when the train is carrying potentially dangerous cargo? The cost of having someone to say with the train overnight seems pretty low when compared the costs of lawsuits, cleanup and so on (which are sure to be huge) with an incident like this.

It is not acceptable procedure to leave a train inadequately braked. But it happens. Why does it happen? Because the engineer or conductor doesn't want to walk their lazy ass 10-15 cars down the train to turn the hand brakes. And because its actually against the rules to cross a train (all railroad employees must walk around a train), and since about half the hand brakes are on either side, you have to walk double the distance because you walk both sides of the train to set the brakes.

So to set 15 brakes you end up walking about 60 cars. Walk down 15 setting the ones you can, walk back to the front of the train to get to the other side meaning you cover the same 15. Then you cover them again on the other side.

[Elaro]

Head of MMA Railways has reputation for cost-cutting

LAC-MÉGANTIC, QUE.—The man behind the company at the heart of the tragic train derailment and explosions in Lac-Mégantic, Que., is a railroad veteran with a reputation for cost-cutting.
Edward Burkhardt finally arrived Wednesday in the tight-knit Quebec town of 6,000, where he told residents and the media that Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railways had a good safety record, despite mounting information suggesting otherwise, and defending measures to trim expenditures.
“We went through a very difficult period in the aftermath of the big financial meltdown,” Burkhardt told reporters, who shouted questions at him on a Lac-Mégantic street. “MMA has operated in a very difficult market so it’s got to be our objective to haul our costs down.”
The trend goes back a long way.
Burkhardt, now 74, led privatization efforts in New Zealand in the 1990s, work that earned him a title as honorary consul for the country.
In 1999, Burkhardt started Rail World Inc., a “management, consulting and investment corporation specializing in privatizations and restructurings.”
The company, of which Burkhardt serves as president and CEO, promotes privatization of the rail industry, according to its website.
Rail World bought Iron Road Railways in January 2003 and renamed it Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. It runs trains on about 820 kilometres of track in Maine, Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick.
According to a report in the Bangor Daily News, Burkhardt slashed wages by 40 per cent because of the bankruptcy of a major rail customer.
Over the years it tried to sell millions worth of track due to poor profits and declining conditions and in May 2010, it announced plans to save $4.5 million by halving crews on locomotives by replacing them with remote-control devices, according to the report.
In 2012, Transport Canada granted MMA rare permission to operate a train with only one engineer on board.
Railway Age magazine has named him Railroader of the Year.
Burkhardt is president of the San Luis Central Railroad Company and on the board of directors of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. He’s chair of railways in Estonia, where he led railroad privatization in 2001, only to have the government re-purchase the railway six years later.
He’s also a chair at Rail Polska, a Polish company that’s rapidly expanding in the deregulated European rail marketplace, according to Rail World’s website.

I've also read reports that, before the Canadian big railway safety push of the mid-oughts, Rail Works had (and has, in the U.S.) around twice the number of accidents than the average company. After the big safety push, it's reported no more than 8 accidents per year. I don't know if that's a lot compared to other railways. http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013 ... ecade.html

Personally, I think there should have been two engineers on that train. Carrying something dangerous like crude requires more supervision. Also, and I heard this on the radio, crude oil isn't considered a dangerous substance worthy of warning the municipalities through which it travels according to the legislation. I am rather troubled by this. Should I be?

[Alyeska]

Trains are not one man operations. You need a conductor and engineer to properly man that train. Large enough trains should have even more. Honestly, I think they should still have three men on the trains. Engineer and two conductors to work on the ground together as a team.

You put that much work load on a single person, and corners will get cut.

[Enigma]

Insufficient brake force cited as cause of crash.

LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (AP) — Insufficient brake force was applied before an oil train came barreling out of nowhere in the middle of the night and slammed into a small town in Quebec, killing 47 people, officials said Friday.

Donald Ross, chief investigator for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the insufficient brake force could have been due to mechanical problems with the handbrakes, or a problem with the way someone applied them.

"The train got out of control because it wasn't fully immobilized," said Transportation Safety Board investigator Ed Belkaloul. "The number of brakes (applied) is important, but the quality of the braking is also important."

An unattended Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway train was parked overnight on a rail line before it came loose, hurtling down a seven-mile (11-kilometer) incline on Jan. 6. The train derailed and ignited in Lac-Megantic, near the Maine border. All but one of its 73 cars was carrying crude oil, and at least five exploded, setting off massive explosions that devastated the small lakeside town of 6,000 people.

A spokesman for the agency said it has had a closer look at 25 tanker cars since gaining access to the blast site two days ago — and has taken pictures and samples.

The investigators said they are also analyzing the contents of the tanker cars that did not explode in the crash, looking for clues on why the crude oil in the other cars exploded so violently.

"We want a more in-depth chemical analysis of the goods. We want to make sure dangerous goods do not explode," said Belkaloul.

The agency says the investigation has already resulted in two safety advisories urging a revision of the Canadian Rail Operating rule governing the securing of parked trains.

It says the rule is not specific enough because it does not spell out how many handbrakes to apply for various weights and types of cargo. It also said that the standard, so-called "push-pull test" does not always accurately show whether the brakes have been adequately applied.

"Rule 112 says you need a sufficient number of brakes. What does that mean, sufficient? Because if you have a locomotive of 120 rail cars, that is the problem, a train engineer has to decide how many of those elements to take into account and that is the problem," said Belkaloul.

The board has also advised Transport Canada that dangerous goods should not be left unattended on a main track and, also, that rail equipment be properly secured.


Ross said there are similarities between the Lac-Megantic accident and previous ones, including an incident near Sept-Iles, Quebec, in December 2011 that had to do with securing trains. In that case, air brakes on the train were released and it started to move because an insufficient number of hand brakes were applied.

Ross said they are also looking at official documents, like shipping documents and rail journals.

"We are interested in the one-man train operation that existed here as well as the railways' safety management system plan," Ross said.

The transportation watchdog's advisory comes a week after Edward Burkhardt, president and CEO of the railway's U.S.-based parent company, Rail World Inc., blamed the train's engineer for the accident. Burkhardt questioned whether he had properly set enough hand brakes and said the engineer had been suspended without pay.

The board said that while the investigation is expected to take quite some time, it won't wait to send safety warnings.

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt's office said Friday that the department has been directed to review the board's recommendations on an expedited basis.

Canada's two largest railways announced earlier this week that they are strengthening their own safety procedures in the wake of the Lac-Megantic disaster. Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway said the tragedy prompted them to review their policies, including brake-setting procedures.

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic railway has also said it is reviewing its safety procedures.

Meanwhile, emergency officials continue to comb through the wreckage, searching for bodies amid intense heat and hazardous conditions. Authorities have recovered the remains of 42 bodies, five bodies remain missing. Initially officials estimated 50 people died in the disaster but revised that figure to 47 on Friday.

___

Associated Press writer Charmaine Noronha in Toronto contributed.

[sarcasm] In other words, water is wet and fire is hot. What next? Circles have no corners? [/sarcasm] Really, we've already knew there was "insufficient brake force". More important is to know why it was insufficient.

[Phantasee]

And people still want to force crude oil shipments onto rail instead of massively safer pipelines.