No hazardous materials from Saturday train derailment in Ohio
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (WDTN) -- First responders were called to Springfield, Ohio, Saturday after 20 cars of a Norfolk Southern cargo train derailed. A team with Clark County Hazmat was activated to survey the derailment "out of an abundance of caution" and residents in the immediate area were told to shelter in place.
Crews from Clark County Hazmat, Norfolk Southern and the Ohio EPA all conducted their own independent examinations of the crash scene and said there was no evidence to support any spillage.
There were no injuries, nor any signs of risks to the health of the public, officials said Sunday.
The train, which did not have passengers, derailed around 5 p.m. Saturday by State Route 41, near the Clark County Fairgrounds, the Dispatch reported. Springfield is about 46 miles west of the state capital of Columbus, Ohio.
The 20 cars of the 212-car train derailed while traveling south, the Norfolk Southern spokesperson said.
"Approximately 20 of the 212 cars derailed with four tankers identified with non-hazardous
materials -- two tankers contained residual amounts of Diesel Exhaust Fluid and the other
two tankers contained residual amounts of Polyacrylamide Water Solution," officials said.
Ohio EPA said the two substances being shipped were "common industrial products."
Shawn Heaton told the Springfield News-Sun that he was waiting at the intersection as the train crossed the intersection and captured the start of the derailment on video.
“I was right there and I was playing on my phone and then I heard a loud bang. And when I heard the loud bang, I started recording,” Heaton said. “When I heard the bang, there was all kinds of debris and metal shoot out from under the cars and that’s when I started recording and you could see them start jumping off the tracks.”
A shelter-in-place had been put in place for residents living within 1,000 feet of the derailment scene. The shelter-in-place has since been lifted. Some people in the Springfield area were still without power Sunday. Ohio Edison was working to bring power back to everyone.
On Feb. 3, 38 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, in northeast Ohio near Pennsylvania, derailed and several of the train's cars carrying hazardous materials burned.
Though no one was injured, nearby neighborhoods in both states were imperiled. The crash prompted an evacuation of about half the town’s roughly 5,000 residents, an ongoing multigovernmental emergency response and lingering worries among villagers of long-term health impacts.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.