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Officials: No sign of a spill after 20-car Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio

Unlike the Feb. 3 derailment involving the same company in East Palestine, Ohio, officials said there were no hazardous materials aboard the train.

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — There is no sign of a spill after 20 cars of a Norfolk Southern cargo train derailed near Springfield Saturday evening, officials said Sunday. It was the second derailment of the company's trains in Ohio in a month.

"There is no indication of any injuries or risk to public health at this time," an early Sunday update from Clark County's official Facebook page said. It added that crews from Norfolk Southern, the county hazmat team, and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency each independently examined the site and found "no evidence of spillage."

Unlike the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, officials said there were no hazardous materials aboard the train. Clark County said four of the derailed cars had residual amounts of non-hazardous materials — two with diesel exhaust fluid and the other two with polyacrylamide water solution. 

"The derailment is not in an area with a protected water source, meaning there is no risk to public water systems or private wells at this time, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency," the update said. 

A shelter-in-place order for people living within 1,000 feet of the derailment was lifted. State Route 41 remained closed "until further notice."

The train derailed while traveling south around 5 p.m. Saturday by State Route 41, near the Clark County Fairgrounds, The Columbus Dispatch reported. It was not carrying any passengers. Springfield is about 46 miles west of the state capital of Columbus, Ohio.

Shawn Heaton told the Springfield News-Sun that he was waiting at the intersection as the train crossed the intersection and captured the start of the derailment on video.

“I was right there and I was playing on my phone and then I heard a loud bang. And when I heard the loud bang, I started recording,” Heaton said. “When I heard the bang, there was all kinds of debris and metal shoot out from under the cars and that’s when I started recording and you could see them start jumping off the tracks.”

On Feb. 3, 38 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, in northeast Ohio near Pennsylvania, derailed and several of the train's cars carrying hazardous materials burned.

Though no one was injured, nearby neighborhoods in both states were imperiled. The crash prompted an evacuation of about half the town’s roughly 5,000 residents, an ongoing multigovernmental emergency response and lingering worries among villagers of long-term health impacts.

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