{{About 80 people are missing after a driverless oil tanker train derailed and exploded in the small Canadian town of Lac Megantic, destroying dozens of buildings.}}<\/p>\n
The accident in the small Quebec town, located around 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Montreal, created a spectacular fireball and forced 2,000 people from their homes.<\/p>\n
Officials earlier only confirmed one fatality, but had warned the toll could rise. A search for bodies was to begin Sunday at dawn.<\/p>\n
The firefighter said on condition of anonymity that there had been at least 50 people in one bar that was consumed by the flames.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing left,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Witnesses reported as many as six explosions after the train derailed at about 1:20 am (0520 GMT) in Lac Megantic, a picturesque resort town of 6,000 residents near the border with the US state of Maine.<\/p>\n
Michel Brunet, a spokesman for Quebec\u2019s provincial police, said late Saturday the official death toll remained at one but added: \u201cWe expect there will be more fatalities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Radio-Canada had earlier reported that 60 people were unaccounted for in Lac Megantic, where the blaze was still raging, 20 hours on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been several reports\u201d from people who said they were unable to reach relatives who lived near the accident site, Brunet said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fire is still raging, our investigators have not yet even be able to get close to the scene,\u201d he added, more than 12 hours after the incident.<\/p>\n
An initial evacuation zone of a kilometer around the crash site was widened Saturday as a precaution against harmful particles in the air, bringing the total to 2,000 people forced to leave their homes.<\/p>\n
Around 150 firefighters were battling the blaze, including some who came across the border from Maine, just 25 kilometers south of the town.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo conductor on board\u201d<\/p>\n
The cause of the crash was still unknown, but a spokesman for the Montreal Maine & Atlantic company, Christophe Journet, told media the train had been stopped in the neighboring town of Nantes, around 13 kilometers west of Lac-Megantic, for a crew changeover.<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{About 80 people are missing after a driverless oil tanker train derailed and exploded in the small Canadian town of Lac Megantic, destroying dozens of buildings.}} The accident in the small Quebec town, located around 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Montreal, created a spectacular fireball and forced 2,000 people from their homes. Officials earlier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8933"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8933"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}