Twenty-two rail cars “carrying mixed freight including ethanol and corn syrup” derailed at 1 a.m. central time, BNSF Railway said in a statement. Ethanol is a highly flammable chemical. Several of the derailed tanks caught on fire, according to the Kandiyohi County Sheriff’s Office.
An order went out to evacuate an area within a half a mile around the crash site, and law enforcement officers and EMS personnel assisted with evacuating the area.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation said Highway 23 was temporarily closed at Raymond from Kandiyohi CR 1 to Chippewa CR 1 because of the derailment.
In an update at 7 a.m., the sheriff’s office said BNSF specialists were on scene as “continued mitigation” was underway.
The sheriff’s office said at 9 a.m. local time that it was working with public safety partners on local, state and federal levels to determine when families can return home.
Multiple agencies have flocked to the derailment site, with the National Transportation Safety Board saying it is launching a team to conduct a safety investigation into the incident.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted the Federal Railroad Administration was on the ground in Raymond after the train derailment.
A resident in the area shared a photo of train cars on fire after an early morning derailment in Raymond, Minnesota.
Source: Jamie Bestge/Facebook
“At present no injuries or fatalities have been reported,” he said. “We are tracking closely as more details emerge and will be involved in the investigation.”
The sheriff’s office said an emergency collection site for those with nowhere to go was established at the Central Minnesota Christian School in the nearby city of Prinsburg, and a shelter will be set up at Unity Church, also in Prinsburg. No travel was advised to the city of Raymond in the meantime.
This derailment comes on the heels of a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials that derailed on Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio.
That derailment led officials to conduct an intentional burn of toxic chemicals in some of the derailed cars to prevent an explosion. The crash prompted an evacuation of about half the town’s roughly 5,000 residents, a multiagency emergency response and lingering worries among residents about long-term health impacts.