5 dead, 40 missing as Lac-Megantic victims tally rises

The downtown core lays in ruins as fire fighters continue to water smoldering rubble Sunday, July 7, 2013 in Lac Megantic, Quebec after a train derailed ignited tanker cars carrying crude oil. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

LAC-MEGANTIC—Five people are dead and about 40 are officially missing after a train derailment caused a fireball to flatten 30 buildings in the town of Lac-Megantic.

Dozens of investigators are continuing their investigation and search for the missing. Many are feared dead.

“This is an unbelievable disaster,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who visited the community 250 kilometres east of Montreal on Sunday to see the devastation firsthand. “It looks like a war zone here. It’s difficult to imagine if you’re not here.”

Harper offered condolences to residents of the community of 6,000, saying, “All across the country, the community here is in everyone’s thoughts and prayers.”

He confirmed that a federal investigation is underway.

Meantime, the death toll continues to rise as families wait anxiously for information concerning their loves ones. The five victims who have been found have not yet been identified.

“The families have not yet been notified, so we cannot reveal where we found them,” said Surete du Quebec Lt. Michel Brunet.

The bodies will be sent to Montreal for forensic analysis and autopsies, said Brunet, who added that police were treating the area as a crime scene as part of a criminal investigation.

"The fire scene investigators from Surete du Quebec are going to go on the scene and afterwards the security bureau is going to be working with us to find out what happened," said SQ spokesperson Benoit Richard."We cannot say that it is a criminal act, we can only say we are looking at it as if it was."

Genevieve Guilbault, spokeswoman for the coroner's office, said the bodies recovered had suffered serious burns.

Brunet said Sunday that some 1,500 to 2,000 residents who were forced from their homes could begin returning.

It was a relatively quiet night following a dramatic series of events started when a driverless Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway Inc. train filled with crude oil became unhinged and rolled into Lac-Megantic. There it derailed sending fireballs 90 metres into the night sky, destroying around 30 buildings—including historic buildings and community landmarks--to forever change the landscape of this Eastern Townships community.

Fire chief Paul Lauzon said fire crews worked overnight to cool five tankers to make sure they did not explode. He said as of Sunday morning, two of the 73 tankers involved in the derailment remained a concern. By Sunday afternoon, all the fires were extinguished.

“It’s a great mess,” Lauzon said.

Lac-Megantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche said Sunday afternoon she had yet to hear from Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, the company that owns the railway.

"trains passing through downtown has always been a sensitive issue for us," she said.

Search for the missing

Police urged residents who are still missing family members or who have located family members who they originally reported as missing to contact police, with provincial police setting up a Facebook page or by calling 819-554-8897, or emailing [e-mail]. The Red Cross can also be contacted at 1-800-418-1111. The organizations set up a shelter Saturday afternoon to take in residents. Donations to the victims of Lac-Megantic can also be made through that organization.

According to officials, the blasts took place near the downtown core–a popular area during the busy summer nights. Fires still burned and some areas remain inaccessible.

Zeph Kee said he was about five kilometres away from the derailment when the explosions began.

"There are still some people I know that are missing," he told CTV News Channel Sunday. "There are some people that my friends know that haven't been found yet. It's devastating."

Francis Veilleux said he was the last one to speak to his father, who lives 150 feet from the explosion, where the heart of the town was destroyed.

"If he was alive, he would have contacted us by now," he said.

Lac-Megantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche said Sunday that drinking water was available to residents again, while a boil water advisory remains in effect until further notice, she said.

Quebec Health Minister Rejean Hebert promises psychological help for weeks to come.

"We know that one, two, three weeks after there is post-traumatic shock, so there are teams put forward at the moment to be ready," he said.

How it happened

Lauzon said Saturday that firefighters in a nearby community were called to a fire on the same train a few hours before the derailment.

He wouldn’t provide additional details because that fire was in another jurisdiction.

That the 73-car train was parked and secured in Nantes, Que., just west of Lac-Megantic, late Friday night. The two town centres are about 12 kilometres apart.

Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway Inc., which owns the train, issued a statement Sunday saying that though they have not been able to enter the derailment area, “one fact that has emerged is the locomotive of the oil train parked at Nantes station was shut down subsequent to the departure of the engineer who had handled the train from Farnham, which may have resulted in the release of air brakes on the locomotive that was holding the train in place.”

The unattended train and “came loose” between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m.

President and CEO of Rail World Inc., the parent company of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, Edward Burkhardt said the train was parked uphill of Lac-Megantic before the incident.

On Saturday, Burkhardt told The Canadian Press that he doesn’t understand how the train got away.

“If brakes aren’t properly applied on a train, it’s going to run away,” he said. “But we think the brakes were properly applied on this train.”

He said the train was parked for the night because the engineer had finished his run.

Joe McGonigle, a vice president at Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, said the train’s engine was found about one kilometre from where the explosions took place.

According to the company’s website, the railway serves Maine, Vermont, Quebec and New Brunswick and owns more than 800 kilometres of rail tracks.

Oil shipments by rail have increased 28,000 per cent since 2009

A whopping 28,000 per cent increase in the amount of oil shipped by rail over the past five years is coming under the microscope following the deadly rail blast in Quebec.

The Canadian Railway Association recently estimated that as many as 140,000 carloads of crude oil are expected to rattle over the nation's tracks this year.

That's up from just 500 carloads in 2009.

Canada's railways have tried to paint themselves as a cost-effective alternative to politically unpopular pipelines, like the proposed Keystone XL.

NDP energy critic Peter Julian says the eye-popping increase has gone largely unnoticed because public attention has been focused on the pipeline debates.

Julian says the Harper government has largely abandoned railway inspection, imposing as much as $3 million in cuts, and allowing the industry to monitor itself.

With files from Marlene Leung of CTVNews.ca and The Canadian Press