The photo shows a major fire which broke out after an oil-laden freight train derailed and exploded in Canada\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s Quebec province on July 6, 2013.<\/p>\n
Officials in Canada say a recent deadly train disaster in Quebec possibly happened due to an engineer\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s failure to set a series of hand brakes.\n<\/p>\n
Quebec provincial police inspector Michel Forget said Wednesday that the July 6 explosive train crash killed 20 people and left 30 people unaccounted for with small hope of being found alive.\n<\/p>\n
He added all the 30 people were \u00c5\u201cmissing and most probably dead in this tragedy,\u201d nothing that authorities had met with their families.\n<\/p>\n
The freight train that was carrying oil crashed on July 6 after it began to roll downhill without a conductor towards the town of Lac-Megantic, around 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Montreal, near the US border and the state of Maine.\n<\/p>\n
It caused a huge blaze that tore through part of Lac-Megantic and forced around 2,000 people to flee their homes.\n<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, chairman of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, Edward Burkhardt said an engineer had failed to set brakes properly on the train.\n<\/p>\n
\u00c5\u201cAdequate hand brakes were not set on this train and it was the engineer’s responsibility to set them,\u201d Burkhardt said during his visit to the scene, adding, \u00c5\u201cWe wouldn\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t have had this incident,\u201d if the hand brakes been properly applied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Burkhardt had previously put the blame on firefighters in the town of Nantes, where train had been stopped for a crew change, saying they unwittingly released the train\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s brakes when they turned off the main locomotive\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s engines to extinguish a small fire several hours before the disastrous incident.<\/p>\n
However, he said on Wednesday that \u00c5\u201cThe fact that when the air brakes released on the locomotive the train ran away would indicate that the hand brakes were not properly applied.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
He also revealed that the train\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s engineer has been suspended without pay. \u00c5\u201cI don\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t think he\u00e2\u201e\u00a2ll be back working for us. That is my personal opinion,\u201d Burkhardt said.\n<\/p>\n
\u00c5\u201cIt\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s hard to explain why someone didn\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t do something. We think he applied some hand brakes but the question is: did he apply enough of them?\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n
MR\/HSN<\/p>\n<\/div>\n