A column of smoke rises over East Palestine, Ohio, following a controlled fire following the derailment of a train carrying toxic substances.

The image is from last day 6, but the mishap occurred three days before.

Photo: App.

Some 3,500 fish died in a river near East Palestine, Ohio, after a train carrying hazardous substances derailed on February 3

.

In five of its carriages it carried more than 450 tons of vinyl chloride, which causes a rare type of cancer, but also other potentially toxic chemicals that were reported just yesterday, NBC television reported on its website.

The dead fish appeared in the Ohio River, the closest to the site of the incident, along more than 12 kilometers of banks, a section in which the press also reported that a

.

In addition, a farmer claimed that six of his chickens died suddenly, and several residents have complained of headaches, the Reuters agency reported.

Residents of the area interviewed by various US media say that they will drink bottled water, but that they fear bathing.

The day before yesterday, the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWhine, asserted that

, 11 days after the derailment, and after the cleanup work.

Yesterday, Tiffani Kavalec, representative of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, for its acronym in English) in the section of her for the state of Ohio, assured that the

.

The area has multiple chicken and cattle farms, and their owners have expressed fear of losing their animals and their products becoming toxic, so local authorities promised to test the water quality of the wells.

Nearby towns were evacuated the day of the mishap, to prevent them from coming into contact with the gases that could be released by chemical spills.

The mandatory evacuation zone included areas in both Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Authorities asked some 2,000 residents to vacate the area.

Three days later the authorities carried out a controlled burning of the substances to minimize that risk and then excavated the area to prevent the soil and water from being contaminated, ABC News reported.

On the 8th, five days after the derailment,

, and stated that harmless levels of the gases that could be produced by the spill and burning were already detected in the air.

They warned that there could be strange odors but that they were not dangerous.

The EPA classifies vinyl chloride as a carcinogen that in the short term causes dizziness, loss of coordination, nausea and headaches, as well as skin rashes, but in the long term this chemical used in the manufacture of plastics causes rare forms of cancer in the liver, reported the NPR portal.

Call an urgent meeting

The authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the town of East Palestine called an emergency meeting for today in order to fully analyze the impact of the toxic spill.

Andrew Whelton, professor of environmental and ecological engineering at Purdue University, interviewed by NBC, spoke of the combustion and the possible mixture of the different substances that were spilled: “when they burned those materials they created other chemicals.

The question is what did they create?

Meanwhile, a train derailed in Houston, Texas, after colliding with a truck whose driver died.

It was not reported if the train was carrying chemical substances, according to the Sputnik agency.

(Taken from La Jornada)