Two people were taken to hospital after two trains collided east of Revelstoke, B.C., leading to a derailment and a fire.
A statement from train operator Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) says one of its trains hit another one, which was stopped 12.87 kilometres east of Revelstoke in the southern Interior, just after 10 p.m. PT on Friday.
CPKC says that four train cars, carrying grain, on the stopped train were derailed.
“Two crew members on the moving train were taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. One has been released,” the statement reads. “There were no other injuries.”
CPKC says there was also a fire on one of the trains that has since been extinguished, and their crews remain on the site Saturday to investigate the cause of the crash and clean up the damage.
In a statement on Friday night, Revelstoke Fire Rescue Services says they responded to reports of a train crash and someone being trapped inside the train just after 10:30 p.m. PT Friday.
“I had a conversation with the CPKC representative … he told me that there was, in fact, a fuel fire caused by the train that was off the tracks,” Steven DeRousie, the city’s fire chief, told CBC News.
DeRousie said that, while fire crews initially responded to the reports of someone being trapped on board the train, they were then told by ambulance crews that the person was out of the train and returned to the fire station.
The fire chief said they could not respond to the fire itself as the derailment happened outside city boundaries.
He added that an “acrid smell” hung over the town of around 7,500 people after the fire on the train, but there were no immediate concerns for the city’s water supply.
“It smelled somewhat like maybe burning garbage — that plastic-y odour,” he said Saturday afternoon. “It was an unpleasant odour. It seems to have dissipated now with the the fire being put out.”
CBC News has asked the operator if there was any damage to the surrounding environment, including nearby streams. They have yet to respond as of publication time.