(The Associated Press circulated the following article on January 10.)
HOUSTON — Investigators were still trying to determine the cause of a freight train derailment that forced some Harris County residents to remain indoors after fuel and a chemical leaked from railroad cars.
The Union Pacific railroad train carrying concentrated hydrogen peroxide and diesel fuel derailed at about 4 p.m. Saturday.
No injuries were reported, and the leaks were minimized by Saturday night, said Martin DeLeon, a spokesman for the Pasadena Volunteer Fire Department.
Residents of the Red Oak, El Jardin and El Carey communities had been ordered to remain in their homes after Seabrook and Pasadena volunteer firefighters and the county’s Hazardous Materials Unit responded to the derailment.
Firefighters feared that a spark might set off the potentially combustible materials leaking from two 90-ton rail cars that fell on their sides. They extinguished one blaze in the engine, believed to have been triggered by the derailment’s impact.
The train was traveling from an FMC plant in Bayport when it went off the tracks behind the Poly One Plant on State Highway 146.