KING JESUS IS COMING FOR US ANY TIME NOW. THE RAPTURE. BE PREPARED TO GO.
Lac-Megantic: Quebec train blast death toll rises to 13
Ryan Remiorz
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS
An evacuee, right, accompanied by a volunteer, runs to his house
near the blast site to remove some belongings, Monday, July 8, 2013, in
Lac-Megantic, Que., after a train derailed igniting tanker cars carrying
crude oil early Saturday. Five people are confirmed dead and forty more
are listed as missing.
LAC-MEGANTIC, QUE.—Eight more bodies have been found in the wreckage of the Lac-Megantic, Que., train derailment, bringing the death toll so far to 13.The number of those
pronounced dead has risen now that investigators have managed to gain
better access to the zone closest to the blast.About 50 people,
including the victims, have been declared missing after the weekend rail
disaster that devastated much of the town.The first bodies were
found on the weekend and the coroner’s office says they are being
examined in Montreal to determine their identity. The coroner’s office
is asking the relatives of people missing to provide DNA to help
identify victims.
Safety concerns had prevented any overnight search operations.The town began its work week in anything but working order.It’s unclear how the town’s survivors might rediscover their normal routine or how long it might take.Dozens of businesses and numerous homes are destroyed.A grocery store, a
dollar store, and a popular downtown bar are gone. So is the municipal
library. There’s a no-go zone around city hall and a main pharmacy.The town’s prized veterans’ park, along the water, has been scorched.After viewing the devastation Sunday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper likened the downtown of Lac-Megantic to a “war zone.”From England, the
Queen offered her condolences for what she described as a shocking loss
of life. She said she hoped it would be possible to rebuild both the
property and the lives affected.The epicentre of the disaster is a bar where many people are feared to have died.Sophie L’Heureux,
manager of Musi-Cafe, left the bar Friday at around 10 p.m. to go home
for a quick nap. She was supposed to return to the pub later in the
night.“I’m in survival mode
right now. My priority is to try sleep if I can, eat if I can,” she said
Monday. “For the rest, it’s one minute, one day at a time.”“(I) have lots of
trouble sleeping because I’m stuck with the images and the sounds, the
noise of the fire. It’s very difficult to get away from that.”Her home is close to the bar, so the ray of light from he crash woke her up. She went outside and saw the flames.
“I saw enough to be horrified by what happened.”She lost three
colleagues and many friends and acquaintances at the bar. She was the
manager for about a year, but had worked and hung out there regularly
for the last several years.She carries an enormous amount of anger toward the railway company — a feeling expressed by many residents Monday.She said the company can’t possibly repair all the damage that’s been inflicted.The railway, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, has said the locomotive was somehow shut down after the engineer left the train.It said the engineer had locked the brakes before leaving the train.That shutdown “may
have resulted in the release of air brakes on the locomotive that was
holding the train in place,” the company said in a statement Sunday.There might have been warning signs hours before the disaster.Witnesses in the
neighbouring community of Nantes, where the train had been parked before
it started moving, said Sunday they had seen sparks and a cloud of
diesel smoke as it came to a stop a few hours before the derailment.
Lac-Megantic’s fire
chief said Nantes firefighters had answered a call about a fire aboard
the locomotive less than three hours before the train rumbled into
Lac-Megantic.About 30 buildings
were destroyed, including Le Musi-Cafe bar where partygoers were
enjoying themselves in the wee hours of a glorious summer night.
The multiple blasts
after Saturday’s derailment of a train carrying crude oil sent people
fleeing as the explosions rocked the municipality of 6,000, about 250
kilometres east of Montreal.The
prime minister says the federal Transportation Safety Board, and also
the police, are investigating. Police are treating the area as a
possible crime scene.Harper promised to draw lessons from the TSB conclusions to prevent a repeat of such a tragedy.Federal TSB officials
said they planned to interview all possible participants as part of what
they called a “360-degree,” top-to-bottom, investigation.They said they had retrieved a so-called “black box” from the train Sunday.
