SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- The collision of two freight trains released a plume of toxic fumes that killed a conductor and two people who lived nearby, investigators said. Two others were left critically ill.
A team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived late Monday to determine the cause of the crash of the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains in a rural area southwest of San Antonio.
Lead investigator Jim Remines said the team will examine a variety of factors, including track conditions, braking systems, signal operations and how the respective crews responded to the situation.
Remines said a Union Pacific dispatcher had arranged to have the westbound UP train stop while the eastbound Burlington Northern train pulled off onto a siding.
``Somebody should have stopped and didn't,'' he said Tuesday.
John Bromley, a spokesman for Omaha, Nebraska-based Union Pacific, said 23 of the 74 cars on the UP train derailed. Seventeen Burlington Northern cars derailed, all of them empty.
A tanker car carrying pressurized chlorine broke open in the collision, venting tons of gas into the air. A small amount of ammonium nitrate was also released from three UP cars.
The gas clouds dissipated by late Monday morning, after drifting up to 16 kilometers (10 miles) to San Antonio's SeaWorld amusement park, where six people were treated for minor respiratory irritation.
Jerry Leyva, an investigator with the Bexar County Medical Examiner's office, said Gene Hale, 85, and Lois Koerber, 59, died from the effects of breathing chlorine gas. Their bodies were found Monday afternoon in their home about 1.6 kilometers (a mile) from the crash.
Also killed by the gas was Heath Pape, a 23-year-old conductor aboard the Union Pacific train.
Leyva said the deaths have been ruled accidental.
Two people who lived near the crash remained in critical condition. San Antonio Fire Department spokesman Randy Jenkins said more than 40 other people suffered mostly minor respiratory irritation.
Scott Harris, a Dallas-based EPA spokesman, said UP hoped to hoist the chlorine tanker from the wreckage, but heavy rain Tuesday hampered the effort. He said the car still held about 8,000 gallons (30,300 liters) of the chemical.
Related :
