| "For those who deal with Hazmat - a poignant reminder
that lack of training and effective command and control measures early
in an incident can result in needless loss of life"
Mechanical diggers excavating graves drowned out the wails of mourners
waiting to bury loved ones in an Iranian village cemetery today where
some of the 320 people killed by a powerful explosion on runaway railway
wagons were laid out on the ground, covered in blankets and black sheets.
The provincial governor said negligence or brake failure probably caused
51 wagons to roll down the tracks, picking up speed for more than 30
miles until all but three derailed, caught fire and exploded.
Many of the dead were fire-fighters who had almost extinguished the
blaze when petrol and industrial chemicals in the freight cars exploded.
Others were villagers whose clay homes collapsed. About 460 people were
injured.
Fire-fighters choking on fumes finally extinguished the burning freight
wagons shortly before dawn today, about 24 hours after they began their
31 mile unmanned journey at 95 mph until hitting a sharp turn at the
next station.
There, all but three cars derailed and some caught fire. More than
five hours later, a huge explosion went off.
“One possible cause of the wagons rolling away is negligence of the
personnel at the station and the other is technical failure of the braking
system,” said governor of Iran’s north-eastern Khorasan province. He
stressed that the cause remained under investigation.
There was a barely visible decline going out of the station, which
the governor said gave the cars momentum. The rest of the route was
flat.
The head of Iran’s Red Crescent relief organisation, said 320 people
had been confirmed dead. “We don’t think there are a lot more bodies
buried under the rubble,” so the death toll isn’t likely to rise much
more, he said.
Bulldozers and cranes were used to sort through the debris of wagons
and nearby villages devastated by the explosion 20 miles from Neyshabur.
Emergency workers collected human remains torn by a blast so powerful
it collapsed mud homes in five villages, shattered windows as far as
six miles away and left a crater 50 feet deep.
Stunned residents of Neyshabur scanned lists of the dead pasted outside
hospitals, and turned out for the funeral of their governor, who was
among several city officials at the scene, including the fire chief,
who were killed in the explosion. |
