Two crew members were killed when two Union Pacific (UP) freight trains carrying toxic chemicals collided head-on in Lawrence County, Arkansas, US.
The accident occurred in Hoxie on 17 August, and also sparked a fire that reportedly took nearly seven hours to extinguish. The accident also left two other people injured.
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As a precautionary measure, authorities had evacuated approximately 500 people within 1½ miles of the collision, but the majority of them were allowed to return home by mid-morning yesterday.
Meanwhile, investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have taken over the investigation and have already collected the trains’ black boxes to ship them to a lab in Washington for processing.
NTSB probe investigator in charge Mike Hiller said: "We will be looking at train signal information, train braking, track information, train operations and how the crew operated the trains during the investigation."
According to Hiller, Union Pacific has confirmed that the trains were carrying 14 different chemicals and were operating on the same track and also noted that officials would probably investigate if fatigue could have led to the accident.
Union Pacific is yet to release the names of the persons killed and injured in the accident, which represents the second head-on collision involving UP trains since 2012.
In June 2012, two UP trains collided in the Oklahoma Panhandle, killing three crew members and injuring one person.
