A 40-car freight train, which included 13 tankers full of gasoline, derailed and caught fire on Monday in northwest China following the Sichuan earthquake, cutting the Baoji-Chengdu railway, officials said on Tuesday.
The train was still burning on Tuesday morning and it was feared that the burning oil tanks could explode. Firefighters moved 6 kilometers away from the site, and more than 900 local residents were evacuated, officials said.
The train derailed in Huixian County, Gansu Province, at about 2:30 p.m. Monday, said the Xi'an Railway Bureau. That was roughly the time the massive quake struck. The train had been en route from Baoji, Shaanxi Province to Guangyuan, Sichuan Province.
More than 1,000 workers were repairing the damaged rail line, but it was unknown when traffic would resume.
The locomotive caught fire first, and flames then engulfed the tankers, which had been buried by rocks, a spokesman for the Longnan municipal government in Gansu said on Tuesday.
Reports on injuries are conflicting, but it appears that at least one of the train's two drivers was hurt.
(Xinhua News Agency May 13, 2008)