Lac-Mégantic rail disaster
The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster occurred in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada, on July 6, 2013, at approximately 1:14 a.m. EDT, when an unattended 73-car Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) freight train carrying Bakken Formation crude oil rolled down a 1.2% grade from Nantes and derailed downtown, resulting in the explosion and fire of multiple tank cars. Forty-seven people were killed. More than thirty buildings in Lac-Mégantic's town centre (roughly half of the downtown area) were destroyed, and all but three of the thirty-nine remaining buildings had to be demolished due to petroleum contamination. Initial newspaper reports described a 1 km (0.6-mile) blast radius.
| Lac-Mégantic rail disaster | |
|---|---|
Police helicopter view of Lac-Mégantic, the day of the derailment | |
| Details | |
| Date | July 6, 2013 01:14 EDT (05:14 UTC) |
| Location | Lac-Mégantic, Quebec |
| Coordinates | 45°34′40″N 70°53′6″W |
| Country | Canada |
| Operator | Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway |
| Incident type | Derailment of a runaway train, explosion |
| Cause | Neglect, defective locomotive, poor maintenance, driver error, flawed operating procedures, weak regulatory oversight, lack of safety redundancy |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 1 |
| Deaths | 47 (42 confirmed, 5 presumed) |
| Damage | More than 30 buildings destroyed, 36 to be demolished due to contamination |
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada identified multiple causes for the accident, principally leaving a train unattended on a main line, failure to set enough handbrakes, and lack of a backup safety mechanism.
The death toll of 47 makes this the fourth-deadliest rail accident in Canadian history, and the deadliest involving a non-passenger train. It is also the deadliest rail accident since Canada's confederation in 1867. The last Canadian rail accident to have a higher death toll was the St-Hilaire train disaster in 1864, which killed 99.