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Thousands Under Mandatory Evacuation Order in Ohio

Updated: Sep 7, 2023


Thousands are under a mandatory evacuation order after a train carrying potentially harmful chemicals derailed in Ohio. Some families with children were even threatened with arrest if they didn't evacuate immediately.


Emergency responders blew holes in some of the train cars in a planned "controlled release" to burn away the hazardous material.


Thousands of pounds of vinyl chloride, a highly toxic, deadly and known carcinogen, were dumped on the ground and then set on fire from five tanker cars that had derailed as part of the 50 cars that went off the track on Friday. The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s monitoring two other chemicals, phosgene and hydrogen chloride, that may be released into the air by the controlled burn. Neither of these is good news, either. Phosgene was used as a weapon in World War I and is a highly toxic gas that can lead to choking, chest constriction and in the most acute exposures possibly even death. Hydrogen chloride, which has a pungent odor, can irritate the throat, nose and skin. While officials evacuated people living within a one- and two-mile radius of the wreckage, people on social media are reporting being able to smell the chemicals 10 and 15 miles from the site of the crash. Dead fish are being cleared from the banks of streams miles downstream from the accident. One woman posted a video of her chickens dying in North Lima, Ohio, about 10 miles from the accident. Amanda Breshears told the local news station WKBN that her eyes watered when she went outside and that her chickens were fine the day before.


Vinyl chloride boils at 8 degrees. Each tanker car carries between 25,000 and 33,000 gallons of liquid. This means that there may have been as much as 1,000,000 pounds of this toxic chemical.


Norfork Southern has announced that it will be giving East Palestine $25,000. This insulting figure comes from a company with a market capitalization of nearly $60 billion and one that has been providing its Wall Street investors with billions in profits. Incidents like the one in East Palestine are no accident but are the direct result of the rail operators’ push for greater and greater profits. To further boost profits, the rail operators have been increasing the size and weight of trains and using advanced computer programming to increase the number and frequency of trains on tracks.


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