Derailed Tanker Explodes, Spurring New Evacuations

A derailed railroad tank car that had spewed toxic fumes and forced thousands of residents to flee exploded Wednesday evening, forcing renewed evacuations and causing injuries in the path of the fumes, authorities said.

The explosion occurred shortly after 6 p.m. as firefighters tried to put out white phosphorus that had reignited in the tanker. In addition, a nearby tank car carrying sulfur was burning, officials said.

Firefighters were pulled back from the scene as fumes engulfed the wreckage, and the area was being drenched with unmanned water pumpers. No firefighters were injured in the explosion.

Mall in Path of Fumes

Plumes of toxic fumes headed toward a hospital and a busy shopping mall in the Dayton suburbs, and new evacuations were ordered in the towns of Miamisburg and West Carrollton, where residents on Tuesday were forced to flee the derailment of 15 cars of a 44-car CSX Transportation Southland Flyer. The communities of Morain and Miami Township were also ordered to evacuate.

A spokeswoman for nearby Sycamore Hospital said some residents had come to the emergency room for treatment, but she did not know how many or how serious the injuries were.

A dispatcher for the Ohio Highway Patrol’s Dayton post said Interstate 275 in Dayton had been closed to all but outgoing evacuation traffic and that a thick cloud of fumes had descended on the Dayton Mall shopping area.

Miamisburg police spokesmen said officers were going street by street with loudspeakers telling people to leave their homes, and the entire city of 15,000 residents was ordered evacuated.

Three-Mile-Wide Cloud

By 7:30 p.m., a chemical cloud three miles wide at the widest point had spread at least five miles, to Centerville, and was heading into adjacent Greene County. The area being considered for evacuation has about 50,000 residents.