News Khmer

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A 41-year-old woman was killed as she tried to run from her vehicle to safety after railroad tank cars holding thousands of gallons of highly flammable ethanol derailed at a crossing and exploded, authorities said Saturday.
Three other people from the woman's car escaped with severe burns, while hundreds of residents were evacuated from homes near the explosion.

Eighteen tank cars, all filled with ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, derailed Friday night on the edge of Rockford, about 80 miles northwest of Chicago. The wreckage from the Canadian National Railway Co. train burned through the night, but the fire died down Saturday afternoon as investigators began collecting evidence.
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National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Robert Sumwalt said he could not yet determine what caused the derailment.

Reports that the derailment was caused by a washout of the tracks following heavy rain were "not a certainty and this remains under investigation," said Canadian National spokesman Patrick Waldron.

Parts of northern Illinois may have gotten as much as 4 inches of rain Friday, said meteorologist Gino Izzi of the National Weather Service. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport measured 3.6 inches, a record for the date, he said.

Witnesses told the Rockford Register-Star that cars on the Chicago-bound train began hydroplaning in standing water as it approached the crossing.

The woman who was killed - Zoila Tellez, 41, of Rockford - had escaped from an automobile that had stopped at the crossing, but she managed to get only 20 feet away before she fell and died, said Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia.

Some people were allowed to return to their homes Saturday, but authorities did not let anyone within a quarter-mile of the derailment site.