People in a mile-wide radius around a train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio remain under an evacuation order nearly a full day after a 50-car derailment set cars carrying chemicals ablaze, causing people in the area to experience burns on their skin and eyes, the Washington Post reports.
Firefighters initially attempted to fight the fire that ensured from the accident at the town, located along the Pennsylvania border about an hour from Akron. Emergency response units from five states–Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia. However, after authorities learned one of the burning cars carried vinyl chloride, an explosive, highly dangerous chemical, officials pulled back the fire crews and evacuated the area, putting a shelter-in-place order in for the rest of the residents.
Early Saturday, East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway issued a proclamation stating that the town “has been or is immediately threatened by a natural/man-made/technological hazard and or nuclear or conventional attack, and; at approximately 9:00 pm on Friday February 3, 2023 Norfolk Southern had a train derailment with hazardous materials.”