An operation to pump out explosive propane gas from tanker wagons involved in a rail accident in Germany last week was still under way on Monday.
About 60 emergency personnel were at the scene in the early morning, a spokesman for the fire brigade said.
The first freight carriage was already half empty, but more could not be pumped out because the wagon was lying on its side. At the moment, the plan is to burn off the rest of the gas in a controlled manner. It was not yet clear when this would happen.
The fire brigade began pumping explosive propane gas out of freight carriages on Sunday, three days after a collision between two goods trains on a central rail route in northern Germany.
Special pumps were set up for this purpose on Saturday, said Carsten Schaffhauser, spokesperson for the local fire brigade in the Gifhorn district of Lower Saxony, adding that pumping the gas out of the four overturned tanker carriages would take days.
Work at the accident site was delayed on Saturday evening when a gas cloud formed at the leaking carriage, Schafffhauser said. The emergency services were evacuated from the danger zone for safety reasons. Explosion-proof fans were used to create artificial wind.
Early on Thursday morning, a goods train on the important east-west train line had stopped at a signal near the small town of Leiferde near Gifhorn.
Another freight train collided with it, for as yet unknown reasons. Four carriages overturned and the overhead line was also damaged.
The rear-ended train consisted of 25 tanker wagons filled with propane gas. The hydrocarbon is highly flammable – the risk of explosions must therefore be taken into account during recovery. Both freight trains were from private companies.
Credit: dpa Germany
