Canadian runaway train disaster firm faces criminal charges
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Version 0 of 1. The railway company and three of its employees involved in a massive explosion of a runaway oil train that incinerated much of a small town in Quebec last July, killing 47 people, will face criminal negligence charges, provincial prosecutors have said. The charges come 10 months after more than 60 of the tankers carrying oil from North Dakota came loose in the middle of the night, sped downhill for nearly seven miles (11km) and derailed in the town of Lac-Megantic in eastern Quebec. At least five of the tankers exploded, destroying about 30 buildings, including a bar filled with revellers. The Quebec provincial prosecutor's office said 47 counts of criminal negligence have been filed against engineer Thomas Harding, manager of train operations Jean Demaitre, and Richard Labrie, who was in charge of rail circulation, as well as the now-defunct Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway Ltd. The criminal charges, the first to be brought, represent one count for each person killed. Rene Verret, a spokesman for the prosecutor, said the three railway employees were arrested late on Monday afternoon. They are scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday in Lac-Megantic. A message left at MM&A offices was not immediately returned. Quebec's director of criminal and penal prosecutions began a review of the case in late March. Prosecutors said in a statement that they decided to file the charges after an analysis of the evidence gathered at the scene. The railroad blamed the engineer for failing to set enough brakes, allowing the train to begin rolling toward the lakeside town of 6,000. Harding had left the train unattended overnight to sleep at a local inn shortly before it barrelled into Lac-Megantic on 6 July, devastating the downtown bar area and forcing a third of the town's residents to flee. The arrests came just days before the $15.85m (£9m) sale of the bankrupt railway company is expected to close in the US, but there could be a delay of a few days on a parallel proceeding in Canada. Most of the proceeds will be used to repay creditors. Eventually, there will be a settlement fund to compensate victims and repay cleanup costs. The environmental cleanup could end up costing between $200m and $500m, with only $25m in insurance payouts available for wrongful death, personal injury, property damage, fire suppression and environmental impact. The rail firm's buyer, a subsidiary of New York-based Fortress Investment Group, is changing its name to Central Maine and Quebec Railway. The company said it hoped to recapture lost business but had no plans to try to bring back oil shipments. Verret said prosecutors had hoped to announce the charges earlier, but they had to find and arrest those charged as well as inform the families of the victims in Lac-Megantic. The crash, the worst railway accident in Canada in nearly 150 years, prompted intense public pressure to make oil trains safer in the US and Canada. Canada's transport minister said the type of tankers involved in the Lac-Megantic disaster must be retired or retrofitted within three years because they were prone to rupturing. |