BakkenBOOM_heimdal+derail+picture+from+Jennifer+Willis

This photo was taken by neighbor Jennifer Willi, who lives about 1/2 mile from the scene of the derailment, near Heimdal, North Dakota.  At least 10 cars exploded and are burning.  They should publish the destination of the cars so people will know the reach of these trains!  They line up outside the Delaware City refinery; blew up in Lac Megantic, Ontario; Lynchburg, VA.  We are all at risk!

Some coverage, with a snippet from each:

Crude oil train derails in North Dakota, residents evacuate town

“It’s all over the place,” Wells County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Janelle Pepple told the Daily News. “Thick, billowing black smoke; flames shooting 100 feet in the air. It’s a pretty spectacular-looking fire.”

North Dakota Town Evacuated After Train Derailment

North Dakota Town Evacuated After Oil Cars Derail And Catch Fire

Roehrich said she couldn’t get close enough to the train to see whether it was exploding or just burning. “It looks a lot like Casselton,” she said, referring to the fiery train wreck of oil tankers near Casselton in late 2013.

Oil train derailment prompts evacuation

(with the admission that new cars don’t really matter)
BNSF said the tank cars that derailed were constructed under a 2011 voluntary rail industry standard intended to make them tougher than older cars that were long known to pose a safety risk. But the new cars have proved equally dangerous. The five major oil train accidents so far this year in the U.S. and Canada all involved the newer cars, each of which can hold about 30,000 gallons of fuel.

 
From KMSP:

A new MnDOT analysis released in March shows 326,170 Minnesotans live within the half-mile evacuation zones along state oil train routes.

This video was up on KMSP’s site, then disappeared, maybe it will come back:

KMSP-TV

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