14 DAY TRIAL // A train carrying about 70 tankers of crude oil derailed and exploded in the small town of Lac-Megantic in Quebec, Canada. CNN reports that there is at least one fatality, several more injuries, but many people are still missing so an estimate is hard to make at this point.
A video of the fire that engulfed the tankers, which could be seen for many miles, is embedded above.
Authorities are now striving to find the missing people, while also offering whatever assistance they can to the people whose homes have been destroyed by the powerful explosion.
“Words cannot tell the damage that had been done. Many, many buildings have been damaged. It's a catastrophe for the town of course, but also for the whole province,” Quebec provincial police Sgt. Gregory Gomez del Prado says.
An investigation into the causes of the blast is now underway. Reports say that some of the oil that spilled might have reached a local river, which, if true, could prove another catastrophe, besides the loss of human life and the destruction of property.