Officials on Monday night were calling for the evacuation of the entire town of Casselton, N.D., after a BNSF grain train derailed and crashed into a crude oil train in North Dakota on Monday afternoon, causing tank cars to explode in towering mushroom-cloud flames.
No one was injured in the accident that happened about 2:10 p.m. near Casselton, about 20 miles west of Fargo, but smoke billowed for hours.
Monday night, however, the Cass County Sheriff's Office was "strongly recommending" that the town's 2,300 residents leave immediately. Those who live within 5 miles south and east of the city also were told to leave.
"Information from the National Weather Service indicates a shift in the weather resulting in a high pressure system that will push the plume of smoke down increasing the risk of potential health hazards," the sheriff's office said in a news release.
Amy McBeth, a spokeswoman for BNSF, said a grain train derailed on a track parallel to an eastbound crude oil train with 106 tank cars, striking some of the tanks and triggering explosions.
It was not clear how many tank cars were struck, nor how many were burning, she said.
"It was black smoke and then there were probably four explosions in the next hour to hour and a half," said Eva Fercho, a Casselton resident who saw the fiery aftermath.
An estimated 11 to 12 crude oil unit trains depart daily from the oil region in western North Dakota. Lacking sufficient pipelines, 69 percent of the state's oil is currently shipped to market by rail. The main railroads, BNSF and Canadian Pacific, have tracks through the Twin Cities.
