Chemical leak from train cars triggers safety concern

Finnish authorities are investigating how a 50-car train carrying highly inflammable and poisonous liquid was left for two weeks on a lone side track in Eastern Finland without notifications to local rescue services, media reports said on Sunday.

Two of the cars had got lose and rolled down unattended against the track barrier and began leaking. The driver of a passing freight train observed the scent of chemicals in the air and made an alert on Saturday, and the event was initially reported in local media as "a leak from a tank car".

On Sunday, media reports said 35 tons of the liquid in total were leaked.

Tomi Anttila, a supervisor at the national transport safety agency, Trafi, told national broadcaster Yle that leaving chemical trains on distant side tracks is legal, but rescue services must be given an advance notification.

Veli-Pekka Nurmi, director of the national disaster investigation authority, told Yle the reason for the cars to get lose was not known.

"The train has been there for at least two weeks", he said. Nurmi said it was lucky that the incident did not happen in a populated area.

According to media reports, the cars came across the border from Russia and was now under the responsibility of the Finnish state railroad company VR.

The company refused to specify the destination of the cars, nor the exact owner of them, on the grounds that a police investigation was underway.

The chemical MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) is used in the processing of petrol. Local environmental officials told Yle that the chemical is fatal to fish and other marine species.

It was reported that the leaked chemical reached waterways through ditches around the railroad. As the lakes and rivers are frozen, the chemical cannot evaporate to the air but continues moving on. Results of water samples will be available on Monday.

The location of the accident was the former railroad station of Kinni in eastern Finland.