Transport Personnel

Smoke rises from railway cars that were carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac-Magantic, Que., Saturday, July 6, 2013. Three people will appear in court later Tuesday in Lac-Megantic, Que., to face charges of criminal negligence causing death stemming from one of the deadliest rail disasters in Canadian history. The Crown announced late Monday that Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway Ltd. and three employees of the insolvent railway will each face 47 counts of criminal negligence causing death. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

Last year a shipment of highly explosive crude oil derailed and exploded in a little railway town in Quebec called Lac-Megantic. A horrible conflagration resulted, destroying half the downtown centre of the town. A tragedy of formidable proportions left the town residents in a state of shock, with the realization that there were 47 of their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, neighbours whom they would never again see in this lifetime.

A succession of careless personal decision-making on the part of employees of the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic railway and institutional disinterest in instituting a fail-safe formula of safety procedures, along with inadequate investment in more soundly structured rail cars to handle the highly flammable crude oil brought this tragedy on Lac-Megantic.

Though the disaster, when 72 tank cars of a runaway train caused the dreadful impact on July 6, 2013, has simmered for many months, it is only now that Quebec Crown prosecutors have brought 47 counts of criminal negligence against the single engineer in charge of the train who decided to leave it on a siding, facing a downhill slope, without an adequately assured braking system.

Two other railway employees were also placed under arrest with similar charges brought against them. The tragedy that night began when a fire was noticed on the engine, and the two men responsible for the train at a town close by Lac-Megantic where it was parked, absent the engineer who had taken himself to bed for the night, responded, put out the fire, and decided it was safe to leave it where it had been parked, unattended, still on that downhill slope.

The rest is tragic history, as the inadequate braking system that was not entirely engaged to begin with, failed and the unmanned train rolled down the incline into Lac-Megantic, derailing as it reached the town centre, some of its cars exploding into chemical-induced flames, turning the sleepy little town into a vision of Hell.

Contrast that with the responsible, quick-thinking reaction of a bus driver in Yibin, Sichuan whose bus burst into flames, who remained on his bus and whose actions saved the lives of his passengers. Xiao Kunming used a fire extinguisher on the flames, he smashed a window with a safety hammer to create an exit, helping passengers leave the conflagration.

Badly injured himself, he is now being treated in hospital. There were not only witnesses to the event, but a video was filmed by the camera system on the bus. Twelve people are in intensive care, out of the 77 who received injuries. The man who died, 51, is suspected of having set the blaze.

In the former instance, many in the town of Lac-Megantic feel some sympathy for the three rail employees who were arrested, charged and taken in for a lengthy, close questioning lasting many hours. The shocked rail employees had some idea that they would be called to account, but they had no indication when they might be taken into custody and appear to be in a state of shock.

"There are certainly other people. When you let a railway deteriorate like [MMA] did, there are other people responsible", commented the mother of one of the young men who had died that fateful night in Lac-Megantic. Specifically, the townspeople feel that the one person who should be found responsible for everything wrong that happened was the owner of the now-bankrupt railway, Edward Burkhardt, whose reaction to the disaster left an aura of resentment within the town.

Reuters  The site of a bus fire in Yibin, China, was cordoned off on Monday. One man died and 77 people, including rescue workers, were injured in the blaze.

 

In the latter instance, one courageous man's actions when faced with a disaster not of his making led to the rescue of many people who, though injured, will live to see another day. His actions were a credit to his own sense of place and time and responsibility. His actions heroic, in an entirely unpredictable situation, but falling within his sphere of operation and responsibility, as he saw it.