Darkness and an unstable landscape have halted efforts to find the missing operator of a Quebec North Shore and Labrador freight train that derailed and plunged into Quebec's Moisie River near Sept-Îles, Que.
A spokeswoman for Iron Ore Co. of Canada, which owns the short-line railway, said a landslide caused the derailment of the train on Thursday morning and that teams of searchers are awaiting the approval of police to begin working on Friday morning. Claudine Gagnon said the 232 cars that did not come off the tracks are secure, but that the steep hill above and below the tracks must be declared safe for crews before the search efforts can resume.
Un éboulis à causé le déraillement: première photo pic.twitter.com/lOp3XuI0Zz
— Alexandre Cantin (@AlexCantinTVA) November 6, 2014"We're still looking for our employee," Ms. Gagnon said Thursday night. The company is not identifying the man, who was the only person on the train.
Ms. Gagnon said the train pulled by two locomotives was travelling north from the St. Lawrence River port town of Sept-Îles with 240 empty rail cars destined for the ore mine at Labrador City. "One locomotive is fully submerged and the other is partially submerged," she said, adding workers have put oil booms in the river to try to contain the 15,000 litres of diesel each engine can hold.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada says it has deployed a team of investigators to the site of the derailment, but that they will not reach the scene until Friday morning, given the remote location.
QNS&L railway runs 418 kilometres between Iron Ore Co.'s mine in Labrador City and the St. Lawrence Seaway port of Sept-Îles. The Iron Ore Co., which is majority owned by global mining company Rio Tinto PLC, produces ore pellets for making metals.
Over the past several years, the safety records of railways in Canada have been improving, with the exception of the 2013 explosion of an oil train in Lac-Mégantic, Que., that killed 47 people.
According to the TSB, the number of main-track derailments involving at least three railcars was 33 in 2013 compared with the recent high of 95 in 2005.
The TSB said 28 railway employees have been killed on the job from 2004 to 2013, including five last year.
Meanwhile, Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. said there were no injuries when a train hauling 17 empty hopper cars derailed near Pearce, Alta., on Thursday morning. A CP spokesmen said rail traffic was being rerouted around the area.