Smoke emanates from Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard after a railroad car fire.Photo:Ryan Herzog/The Telegraph via AP
Ryan Herzog/The Telegraph via AP
Evacuations were ordered in western Nebraska after an explosion inside a shipping container on a rail yard.
The explosion took place at around 12 p.m. local time on Thursday at Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard — the world’s largest railyard — in North Platte, Nebraska, according to a post fromNorth Platte Volunteer Fire Department on X(formerly known as Twitter).
The fire department’s post also noted an “emergency evacuation for the area between splinter and front North of railroad track due fire at the railroad involving heavy toxic smoke.”
“Highway 30 between Hershey and North Platte closed due to heavy toxic smoke at Bailey Yards railcar fire,” the volunteer fire department also wrote in a subsequent post.
Several hours later,they posted an update on Xurging more locals to prepare for evacuation “in the next one to two hours due to wind and weather changing.”
North Platte is located in Lincoln County and has a population of about 23,000. According to areport from the Associated Press, evacuations took place within a one-mile radius of the explosion and no injuries occurred as a result of the incident.
Tysver also told local news outletThe North Platte Telegraphthat “No Union Pacific personnel were injured, and our employees have been safely evacuated.”
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Local man Gregg Robertson shared his experience of seeing the incident withThe North Platte Telegraph.“I just saw something and I looked and it was just a big ball of flame,” he said.
Robertson continued, “And then it was just fire, fire, fire, constant for 10, 12 minutes maybe. And then the fire went down and smoke kind of increased, and then it was just sparks coming out.”
He also told the outlet that he had seen two smoke plumes rising from the blast site: ‘The east plume was like black smoke. The west plume was orange smoke, something like I’ve not seen from a fire."
Around three hours after their first post detailing the explosion, the North Platee Volunteer Fire Department revealed in a post on Xthat “Fire & Hazmat are on scene with Union Pacific Rail Road. The incident is contained at this time. They are monitoring the situation and the weather, adjusting their tactics and evacuations to keep responders and citizens safe.”
source: people.com
