Lac-Mégantic rail disaster
2013 oil train crash in Québec, Canada / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster occurred in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada, on July 6, 2013, at approximately 1:14 a.m. EDT,[1][2] when an unattended 73-car Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) freight train carrying Bakken Formation crude oil rolled down a 1.2% grade from Nantes and derailed downtown, resulting in the explosion and fire of multiple tank cars. Forty-seven people were killed.[3] More than thirty buildings in Lac-Mégantic's town centre (roughly half of the downtown area) were destroyed,[2][4] and all but three of the thirty-nine remaining buildings had to be demolished due to petroleum contamination.[5] Initial newspaper reports described a 1 km (0.6-mile) blast radius.[6]
Lac-Mégantic rail disaster | |
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Details | |
Date | July 6, 2013; 10 years ago (2013-07-06) 01:14 EDT (05:14 UTC) |
Location | Lac-Mégantic, Quebec |
Coordinates | 45°34′40″N 70°53′6″W |
Country | Canada |
Operator | Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway |
Incident type | Derailment of a runaway train, explosion |
Cause | Neglect, defective locomotive, poor maintenance, driver error, flawed operating procedures, weak regulatory oversight, lack of safety redundancy |
Statistics | |
Trains | 1 |
Deaths | 47 (42 confirmed, 5 presumed) |
Damage | More than 30 buildings destroyed, 36 to be demolished due to contamination |
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada identified multiple causes for the accident, principally leaving a train unattended on a main line, failure to set enough handbrakes, and lack of a backup safety mechanism.
The death toll of 47 makes this the fourth-deadliest rail accident in Canadian history,[7] and the deadliest involving a non-passenger train. It is also the deadliest rail accident since Canada's confederation in 1867. The last Canadian rail accident to have a higher death toll was the St-Hilaire train disaster in 1864, which killed 99.[8]