[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has issued an evacuation notice for anyone living within a mile of the derailment of a cargo train that triggered a huge fire and the spillage of hazardous chemicals.
The fireball and release of chemicals, including vinyl chloride, happened after 50 cars of a 140-car freight train derailed from their tracks at around 9pm on Friday.
No injuries or fatalities were reported after the crash, which left a smoldering tangle of chemicals, smoke and fire. It occurred near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border by the village of East Palestine.
While over 2,000 people had been evacuated Saturday, DeWine is now calling for anyone within a mile of the accident to leave imminently as a harrowing rise in the temperature in one of the rail cars could cause an explosion of shrapnel.
The Governor said: 'Although teams are working to prevent an explosion from happening, residents living within a mile of the site are advised to immediately leave the area.'
An alert has been sent out via text and mobile to tell people to evacuate.
Federal investigators had announced earlier Sunday that a mechanical issue with a rail car axle caused the fiery derailment near the Pennsylvania state line Friday night.
Michael Graham, a board member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference that the three-member train crew received an alert about the mechanical defect 'shortly before the derailment' but said the board was still working to determine which rail car experienced the issue.
The Norfolk Southern train was shipping cargo from Madison in Illinois to Conway in Pennsylvania when it derailed.
Despite an initial effort to extinguish the blaze, firefighters withdrew from the immediate area on Saturday as fears of toxic gases grew. Cars were still burning on Sunday afternoon, East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick said during a news conference.
'It got to the point where we needed to pull back and let the safety features of the cars themselves handle the situation,' Drabick said.
Unmanned devices were then used protectively while crews tried to determine which cars were still on fire.
'I can't stress enough that if you're in the evacuation zone, you need to leave,' the village mayor Trent Conaway said at the news conference on Sunday. Air quality readings remained safe as of Saturday night.
According to Graham the train consisted of 141 load cars, nine were empty, three were locomotives and ten in total contained hazardous material.
Vinyl chloride, a colorless gas, is considered carcinogenic by the US National Cancer Institute and is used to make the white plastic PVC pipes often used in plumbing.
'It's an active fire scene,' said Graham. Low temperatures complicated the clear up efforts, as fire trucks pumping water onto the fire struggled with freezing conditions.
Firefighters wore hazmat suits as they tackled the blaze. Around 2,000 residents, or just less than half of the town's 5,000 population, were asked to evacuate their homes.
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