LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec — The chairman of the company which owned the runaway train that derailed and exploded in a small Quebec town, killing at least 13, believes the train may have been tampered with, according to a new report.
"We have evidence of this," Ed Burkhardt, the president and CEO of the railway's parent company, told the Montreal Gazette.
"But this is an item that needs further investigation. We need to talk to some people we believe to have knowledge of this."
But Burkhardt said he doesn't "believe that the event was malicious or an act of terrorism."
"There are a number of missing pieces here -- but we'd like to have a complete idea about the cause."
Thirteen unidentified victims have been recovered in the town of Lac-Megantic after the Saturday explosion but nearly 40 people are still missing. Authorities believe several victims were vaporized in the intense heat of the blaze.
Investigators looking for the cause of a fiery oil train derailment are zeroing in on whether an earlier blaze on the same train may have set off a chain of events that led to the explosions.
Officials were looking at a locomotive blaze on the same train in a nearby town a few hours before the derailment.
Transportation Safety Board investigator Donald Ross said the locomotive's black box has been recovered, and investigators were examining whether the air brakes or the hand brake malfunctioned.
"The extent to which (the fire) played into the sequences of events is a focal point of our investigation," Ross said.
All but one of the train's 73 cars were carrying oil. At least five of the train's tankers exploded after coming loose early Saturday, speeding downhill nearly seven miles and derailing into the town of Lac-Megantic, near the Maine border.
Officials said Tuesday that the fire is finally under control and that 1,200 out of about 2,000 evacuees will be able to go back to their homes.
The search for bodies continued but police declined to update the death toll or take questions about that.
The rail tankers involved in the derailment are known as DOT-111 and have a history of puncturing during accidents, the lead Transportation Safety Board investigator told The Associated Press in a telephone interview late Monday.
Ross said Canada's TSB has gone on record saying that it would like to see improvements on these tankers, though he said it was too soon to know whether a different or modified tanker would have avoided last weekend's tragedy.
The DOT-111 is a staple of the American freight rail fleet. But its flaws have been noted as far back as a 1991 safety study. Among other things, its steel shell is too thin to resist puncturing in accidents, which almost guarantees the car will tear open in an accident, potentially spilling cargo that could catch fire, explode or contaminate the environment.
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