20 dead, 30 presumed dead in Quebec oil train crash, police say

The 30 people missing after a
runaway train crash in Quebec over
the weekend are presumed dead,
police said Wednesday, in what has
become Canada's worst railway
catastrophe in almost 150 years
"We informed them of the potential
loss of their loved ones," Quebec
police inspector Michel Forget said
Wednesday after meeting with families
of the dead and missing. "You have to
understand that it's a very emotional
moment."
With 20 bodies found in Lac-Megantic
so far, that would put the death toll
from Saturday's derailment and
explosions at 50. Some of the bodies
may never be found, as authorities
believe several victims were vaporized
in the intense heat.
Quebec Premier Pauline Marois
arrived Thursday to tour the site.
"The leader of this company should
have been there from the beginning,"
Marois said at a news conference.
Attention focused on Edward
Burkhardt, the CEO of Montreal,
Maine & Atlantic Railway, the train's
U.S.-based parent company, who
faced jeers from residents when he
visited the town Wednesday for the
first time since the disaster. He
blamed the train's engineer for
improperly setting its brakes before it
derailed.
Burkhardt said the train's engineer
had been suspended without pay and
was under "police control."
The unmanned train hurtled down a
seven-mile incline, derailed and
ignited in the center of Lac-Megantic
early Saturday. All but one of its 73
cars was carrying oil, and at least five
exploded.
The intensity of the explosions and
fire made parts of the devastated
town too hot and dangerous to enter
and find bodies days after the
disaster. Only one body had been
formally identified, said Genevieve
Guilbault of the coroner's office, and
she described efforts to identify the
other remains as "very long and
arduous work."
Burkhardt, president and CEO of the
railway's parent company, Rail World
Inc., was expected to meet with
residents and the mayor of the town
Thursday.
Investigators also had spoken with
Burkhardt during his visit, said a police
official, Sgt. Benoit Richard. He did not
elaborate.
Until Wednesday, the railway company
had defended its employees' actions,
but that changed abruptly as
Burkhardt singled out the engineer.
"We think he applied some hand
brakes, but the question is, did he
apply enough of them?" Burkhardt
said. "He said he applied 11 hand
brakes. We think that's not true.
Initially we believed him, but now we
don't."
Burkhardt did not name the engineer,
though the company had previously
identified the employee as Tom
Harding of Quebec. Harding has not
spoken publicly since the crash.
"He's not in jail, but police have talked
about prosecuting him," Burkhardt
said. "I understand exactly why the
police are considering criminal
charges ... If that's the case, let the
chips fall where they may."
Investigators are also looking at a fire
on the same train just hours before
the disaster. A fire official has said the
train's power was shut down as
standard operating procedure,
meaning the train's air brakes would
have been disabled. In that case,
hand brakes on individual train cars
would have been needed.
The derailment is Canada's worst
railway disaster since a train plunged
into a Quebec river in 1864, killing 99.
Quebec police have said they were
pursuing a wide-ranging criminal
investigation, extending to the
possibilities of criminal negligence and
some sort of tampering with the train
before the crash. The heart of the
town's central business district is
being treated as a crime scene and
remained cordoned off by police tape.
At a news conference shortly before
Burkhardt's arrival, 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."
In an exchange with reporters,
Burkhardt defended the practice of
leaving trains unmanned, as was the
case when the train rolled away.
Canadian transportation department
officials have said there are no
regulations against it.
"For the future we, and I think
probably the rest of the industry,
aren't going to be leaving these trains
unmanned," Burkhardt said. "We'll
take the lead with that. I think the rest
of the industry is going to follow."
Among the residents looking on as
Burkhardt spoke was Raymond
Lafontaine, who is believed to have
lost a son, two daughters-in-law and
an employee in the disaster.
"That man, I feel pity for him,"
Lafontaine said. "Maybe some who
know him properly may think he's the
greatest guy in the world, but with his
actions, the wait that took place, it
doesn't look good."
The disaster forced about 2,000 of the
town's 6,000 residents from their
homes, but most have been allowed
to return.
Transportation Safety Board
investigator Donald Ross said the
locomotive's black box has been
recovered, and the fire and the chain
of events that followed are a "focal
point" of the investigation.
The accident has thrown a spotlight
on MMA's safety record. Before the
Lac-Megantic accident, the company
had 34 derailments since 2003, five of
them resulting in damage of more
than $100,000, according to the U.S.
Federal Railroad Administration.
Burkhardt said the figures were
misleading.
"This is the only significant mainline
derailment this company has had in
the last 10 years. We've had, like most
railroads, a number of smallish
incidents, usually involving accidents
in yard trackage and industry
trackage," he told the CBC.
Nonetheless, Burkhardt predicted the
accident would lead to changes in the
way railways operate, and indicated
that MMA would no longer leave
loaded trains unattended, a practice
he said was standard in the industry.
"We want to cooperate with the town
and help the residents in getting them
back on their feet," Burkhardt said.
"We're accepting claims that they have
for their loss and ensuring nothing
like this would ever happen again."
The tanker cars involved in the crash
were the DOT-111 type -- a staple of
the American freight rail fleet whose
flaws have been noted as far back as
a 1991 safety study. Experts say the
DOT-111's steel shell is so thin that it
is prone to puncture in an accident,
potentially spilling cargo that can
catch fire, explode or contaminate the
environment.
The derailment also raised questions
about the safety of Canada's growing
practice of transporting oil by train,
and is sure to bolster the case for a
proposed oil pipeline running from
Canada across the U.S. -- a project
that Canadian officials badly want.
The oil on the runaway train was
being transported from North
Dakota's Bakken oil region to a
refinery in New Brunswick on
Canada's East Coast. Because of
limited pipeline capacity in the Bakken
region and in Canada, oil producers
are increasingly using railroads to
transport oil to refineries.
In Washington, White House
spokesman Jay Carney said President
Barack Obama's administration was
closely monitoring the aftermath of
the accident, and has offered
assistance to Canadian officials. He
said firefighters and firefighting
vehicles were deployed from Maine to
assist with the response, and got help
from U.S. customs and border agents
in making the trip.