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INPRIMATU
Are there misguided railways at the base of the Ohio rail accident?
  • In the following images, disseminated on the networks, it can be seen how a train passing through the conventional tracks passes over a sloping and unhealthy track. These images can be seen in the lower space.
Xabier Letona Biteri @xletona 2023ko otsailaren 17a
Gene J Puskar/AP Gene J Puskar/AP

It is still clear why the railway accident occurred on 3 February in the US state of Ohio, East Palestine, but in the first hypotheses a failure on the shaft of the rod linking two wheels of the train led to the lane departure. The origin of this malfunction is not exactly mentioned, but many reports indicate that it can at least cause or contribute to a poor road condition.

The train carrying 150 cars affected 50 of them. There were no injuries or deaths, but the accident has been described as one of the largest chemical disasters in the United States. As a result of the accident, 5,000 inhabitants of East Palestine left the village, as twelve of the injured cars carried a very dangerous gas called vinyl chloride. The explosion of this gas could cause a huge explosion and, according to various reports, could have the force of the Hiroshima atomic explosion. To avoid this, they eventually made holes in the wagons, released 400,000 liters of vinyl chloride and then burned. The operation triggered a fire of magnitude so that the resulting acid rain has spread great pollution throughout the environment.

Poor state of the roads

According to those read by The Guardias, 4.5 million tons of chemicals are transported in the United States each year and, on average, 12,000 train carriages carrying dangerous materials pass through cities and towns. For example, in the Pittsburg (Pensylvania) region, adjacent to East Palestin, five trains have left the rails in the last five years and 1,700 trains pass each year in the United States.

A similar accident occurred in the state of New Jersey in 2012, also due to vinyl chloride, which resulted in a reduction in legislation on the rail transport of chemicals. For example, one of these measures was the transport of chemicals through electronic galga systems that were more efficient than conventional ones. At the time of the Trump administration, on the contrary, the measure was forcibly suspended because railway companies considered it too expensive.

In the video of the following taxi you can see pictures of the railway: