After the derailment, the impossibility of collecting the substances led the authorities to proceed to a controlled burning. Experts warned that this would create a plume of phosgene and hydrogen chloride throughout the region, and asked residents to evacuate.
In a press conference the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, ordered to evacuate the area where 5,000 people resided. “They have to go, they just have to go. It’s a matter of life and death,” DeWine said. according to a local media. The authorities considered that most had abandoned the place but the seriousness of the matter led to a door-to-door call being made before the vinyl chloride.
The railway company train Norfolk Southern headed from Madison, Illinois, to Conway in Pennsylvania. Federal investigators say the derailment was caused by a mechanical problem with a railcar axle. No injuries or damage to surrounding structures were reported as a result of the incident.
However, environmental concern persists despite the fact that after several days the authorities allowed the population to return to their homes. And it is because health experts such as Lynn Goldman, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Washington, warn that the invisible particles of this gas that persist in the environment are more dangerous than the vapors resulting from its burning.
At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admitted that many of those substances were seeping into nearby waterways and many fish died almost immediately.
The Agency explained that although steps had been “taken to minimize” this impact, efforts had focused on the “protection” of drinking water. Despite the appearance of dead fish in the vicinity of East Palestine, authorities say the water was not affected.
Source: Ambito
