One dead as train explodes in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec forcing residents to flee

One person has been declared dead after a driverless freight train carrying tankers of crude oil derailed at high speed.

LAC MÉGANTIC, QUE.—One person has been declared dead after a driverless freight train carrying tankers of crude oil derailed at high speed sparking multiple explosions in the centre of this Eastern Townships community early Saturday.

The resulting fireball and explosions destroyed as many as 30 buildings, gutted downtown businesses and left an unknown number of people feared missing. Officials were not saying how many might be missing.

Police say they can’t get close enough to the site of the derailment to determine whether there are other casualties.

The initial blast was so intense that Roger Beauchesne, who lives two kilometres from its centre, said when the first explosion occurred, he was standing outside and had to dive for cover behind his car to protect himself from the heat.

He said there were six or eight explosions between 1:30 and 4:30 am., the flames reaching hundreds of metres into the air.

Beauchesne said the municipal library, which is beside the railway tracks, was among the building demolished by the blasts.

The owner of one downtown restaurant near the library said during a radio interview that he has been unable to contact three of his employees. Yannick Gagne, the proprietor of Musi-Café, said he left the restaurant about 20 minutes before the explosion and he could feel the heat of the flames from his home one kilometre away.

Up to 1,000 people were forced to flee from their homes in the picturesque lakeside town of about 6,000 people, 250 kilometres east of Montreal.

The crash happened on a beautiful summer evening and witnesses said the town centre was crowded when the 73-car train carrying crude oil flew off the rails just after1 a.m. Four of the cars caught fire and blew up in a fireball that mushroomed 100 metres or more up into the air.

Flames and billowing smoke could be seen late this afternoon.

“We can still see a lot of black smoke, and lots of firefighters. This is so saddening to see,” said Leonard Bedard, 80, who lives about a kilometre from site. He moved to the city a year ago with his wife so he could be closer to services due to his age.

“They should never allow trains carrying that much oil to pass through towns,” said Bedard.

“If this had happened in the country, it would still be something, but not this big. It makes absolutely no sense, and it makes me angry.”

“As far as I'm concerned, you should never leave a train on the tracks for that long without a conductor inside.”

Bedard said that is “mostly businesses destroyed, but about 30-40 houses as well. I hope they rebuild.”

Authorities set up perimeters as firefighters battled to douse the persistent blaze which was still going despite a steady drizzle.

Worried residents looked on behind the perimeters amid fears some of their friends and loved ones may have died in bars and in their homes.

“We’re told some people are missing but they may just be out of town or on vacation,” provincial police lieutenant Michel Brunet told reporters.

“We’re checking all that, so I can’t tell you at the moment whether there are any victims or people who are injured.”

A spokesperson for The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway told the Montreal Gazette this afternoon that the train’s conductor locked the brakes outside of town just before midnight and ensured that all the cars were secured. He then checked into a Lac Megantic hotel for the night.

“Sometime after, the train got loose,” said Joseph McGonigle, vice-president of marketing for the railway that owns more than 800 kilometres of track serving Quebec, New Brunswick, Maine and Vermont. “It traveled under its own inertia to the centre of the town.”

McGonigle said the locomotive detached about 800 metres outside the town but the cars carrying the oil kept on rolling into town.

He said that there are security mechanisms in place to prevent anyone from tampering with the train and the conductor had done the proper checks before leaving the train for the night. The conductor should have been the only one who could set the train in motion.

“We’re not sure what happened, but the engineer did everything by the book. He had parked the train and was waiting for his relief ... somehow, the train got released,” McGonigle told Reuters.

“That’s what confuses us. How did this happen?” he said. “There are many fail-safe modes. How this happened is just beyond us.”

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is looking for the train’s black box to confirm the direction and speed of the train.

A former train conductor told Radio Canada that the most likely scenario is that the train was parked but its brakes were improperly applied. The massive weight of the cargo could have then possibly set the train in motion. Pierre-Luc Sevigny said it is not improbable that the could have reached speeds of close to 90 kilometres an hour.

Bernard Demers, who owns a restaurant in town, had his home evacuated.

“Early this morning (there was) a big explosion like an atomic bomb,” he said in an interview. “It was very hot. ... Everybody was afraid.”

He said the area was probably bustling on a gorgeous summer night.

“On a beautiful evening like this with the bar, there were a lot of people there. It was a big explosion. It’s a catastrophe. It’s terrible for the population.”

Demers has lived in Lac-Mégantic for 45 years and describes the community as a “nice town.”

“Everybody is very friendly... It’s like a small village. A beautiful town but now it won’t be the same.”