Deadly Crash...

[Cherokee_Mountaincat]

I hope all of our friends in Canada in that area are safe and sound..:(

http://news.yahoo.com/explosive-train-crash-quebec-evacuated-whole-town-175639048.html

[tenni]

Well, dumplin I was safe about 250 km away from the explosion on Saturday in Montreal. I didn't hear about it until I was on the train going home. There are now five reported dead with another 40 declared missing. The death toll is expect to rise. Thanks to to the volunteer firefighters from Main (I think) who came to help. Explosions continued for part of Saturday.

[tenni]

I just read that officials are stating that some of the missing may just have vapourized and nothing will be found. How awful but hopefully instantly?

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/07/07/lac_megantic_death_toll_rises_in_quebec_train_dera ilment_explosion.html

[Gearbox]

I just read that officials are stating that some of the missing may just have vapourized and nothing will be found. How awful but hopefully instantly?

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/07/07/lac_megantic_death_toll_rises_in_quebec_train_dera ilment_explosion.html
It must be Hell there. You just don't think things can plummet into chaos so quickly and so easily.
It's good to hear that you wasn't involved, and I hope many will hear the same about their family and friends there too. What a nightmare not knowing is, only a few shades darker than learning the worst.

[Cherokee_Mountaincat]

Going that quick is vastly better than suffering burns all over your body. Thank the Spirits it Was quick for some of them...
Horrible..:(

[tenni]

There have been 20 bodies found. One has been identified by DNA study. There are 50 or more reported missing and now being referred to as presumed dead. Lac-Megantic (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/07/10/lacmagentic_derailment_faces_of_the_disaster.html) has a population of 6,000. They are so far successful keeping the light oil restricted to one river. If it gets to a larger river it will become a major environmental disaster.

[12voltman59]

I thought that I heard them say on tonight's news that the death toll is somewhere in the range of 60 dead--and surely heard them also say that many of the deaths will never be known because, as was said----bodies were simply blown to less than bits thanks to the explosions.

[tenni]

Voltie
The numbers of presumed dead have fluctuated to 60 or more. It seems to be difficult to maintain the numbers as those that have been found have not been taken off the list in the confusion. The number 50 is being used in Canada late Wednesday.

Further issues for everyone is the now reported vast increase of using rail to transport oil. I forget the exact percentage but it was over 10 000 percent increase since 2006 increase in use of rail transportation for oil. Another is the continued use of a certain type of train car that is far more prone to explode. Questions are being asked as to why they were not forced to stop using them as the danger aspect was reported nearly 20 years ago.

At a news conference shortly before Burkhardt's arrival, Quebec Premier Pauline Marois faulted his company's response.
"We have realized there are serious gaps from the railway company from not having been there and not communicating with the public," Marois said. She depicted Burkhardt's attitude as "deplorable" and "unacceptable."
Burkhardt, who arrived in town with a police escort, said he had delayed his visit in order to deal with the crisis from his office in Chicago, saying he was better able to communicate from there with insurers and officials in different places.
"I understand the extreme anger," he said. "We owe an abject apology to the people in this town."

[dickhand]

Not being a railroad man , I wonder why shipping crude oil requires pressurized tankers . Crude oil is barely a step up from tar . Take a look at bunker oil sometime . This is used industrial furnaces . This stuff turns tar like if too cool . It seems like pressurized tankers would rupture easier than regular tankers . This is scary on so many levels . Fire fighters from towns a few mile east of here went to help in Canada .

[tenni]

Correction about the increase in trains carrying hazardous material. It is 68 000 increase of hazardous material on trains in the past five years! Incredible.

The Guardian has an article about what this tragedy means to them.

Quebec's Lac-Mégantic oil train disaster not just tragedy, but corporate crime
At the root of the explosion is deregulation and an energy rush driving companies to take ever greater risks

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/true-north/2013/jul/11/1

[tenni]

Forty-two bodies have been located so far. Just over half — 22 — have been identified. The first named victim, 93-year-old Eliane Parenteau, was identified by her jewelry and a metal plate near her hip.

But others lacking the marks of past surgeries and tattoos, or whose bodies, teeth and bones were burned badly in the oil-tanker fires, will be subject to cutting-edge science, including DNA analysis and rigorous medical detective work. It could take weeks or months before their families get the closure they are seeking.

“Extreme heat is one of the worst things for DNA,” said Dr. Thomas Parsons, chief of forensic pathology for the Sarajevo-based International Commission on Missing Persons, which has used DNA analysis to identify 17,000 victims of ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia, including those whose degraded remains were pulled from mass graves.

“When you cremate somebody, for example, you reduce someone to their basic elements that can’t be burned, and all the other stuff is gone.” ..............

One report this week said that search crews are now looking for fragments of bodies rather than intact corpses in pools of oil and other toxic chemicals, providing a glimpse into both the horror and the technical difficulties involved in investigating the blast site.

And while no human being can be emotionally prepared for the devastation of such work, an exhaustive system that was forged in the fires of the 9/11 terror attacks is helping medical investigators manage the mountains of evidence and information coming in from the crash site and from family members.

Behind those 47 names there are 47 families relying on the rigour and discipline of science and information management to be laid overtop the chaos that was caused by the explosion.

Identifying victims of a mass casualty accident is an exhaustive, laborious process that usually starts with a simple family tree and, in the most complex cases, ends with cutting-edge science.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/07/20/lacmegantic_explosion_quebec_coroners_face_major_t ask_in_identifying_derailment_victims.html

[Realist]

This is terrible....being burned alive is my worst nightmare!

I've ridden on trains in Europe, the US, and Canada. US trains are definitely in worse shape, by far, and the tracks are much rougher.

If we're using the same kind of oil tankers, we'd be in more danger that either Europe, or Canada!