LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec // Fires continued burning more than 24 hours after a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed in eastern Quebec, igniting explosions and fires that destroyed a town's centre and killed at least one person.
Police said they expected the death toll to increase.
The eruptions sent residents of Lac-Megantic scrambling through the streets under the intense heat of towering fireballs and a red glow that illuminated the night sky, witnesses said. Flames and billowing black smoke could still be seen long after the 73-car train derailed, and a fire chief likened the charred scene to a war zone.
Up to 2,000 people were forced from their homes in the lakeside town of 6,000 people, which is about 250 km east of Montreal and about 16km west of the Maine border.
Quebec provincial police Lt. Michel Brunet confirmed that one person had died. He refused to say how many others might be dead, but said authorities have been told "many" people have been reported missing.
Lt. Guy Lapointe, a spokesman with Quebec provincial police, said: "I don't want to get into numbers, what I will say is we do expect we'll have other people who will be found deceased unfortunately."
Lapointe refused to give any estimate of people unaccounted for because police were having difficulty getting a fixed number.
"People are calling in reported love ones missing, some people are reported two, three times missing by different members of the family," he said.
The derailment caused several tanker rail cars to explode in the downtown, a popular area packed with bars that often bustles on summer weekend nights.
Police said the first explosion tore through the town shortly after 1 am local time. The fire then spread to several homes.
"When you see the center of your town almost destroyed, you'll understand that we're asking ourselves how we are going to get through this event," an emotional Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche told a televised news briefing.
The cause of the accident was believed to be a runaway train, the railway's operator said.
The president and CEO of Rail World Inc., the parent company of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, said the train had been parked uphill of Lac-Megantic.
"If brakes aren't properly applied on a train, it's going to run away," said Edward Burkhardt. "But we think the brakes were properly applied on this train."
Burkhardt, who was mystified by the disaster, said the train was parked because the engineer had finished his run.
"We've had a very good safety record for these 10 years," he said of the decade-old railroad. "Well, I think we've blown it here."
The blasts came over a span of several hours as the fire tore through the center of town, destroying at least 30 buildings. Lines of tall trees in the area looked like giant standing matchsticks, blackened from bottom to tip.
Witnesses said the eruptions sent many shook residents out of their slumber and sent them darting through the streets.
Patrons gathered by a nearby bar were sent running for their lives after the thunderous crash and wall of fire blazed through the early morning sky.
Bernard Theberge, who was outside on the bar's patio at the time of the crash, feared for the safety of those inside the popular Musi-Cafe when the first explosion went off.
"People started running and the fire ignited almost instantaneously," he said.
"It was like a movie," said Theberge, who considered himself fortunate to escape with only second-degree burns on his right arm.
"Explosions as if it were scripted - but this was live."
Firefighters, including some from Maine, doused the blaze for hours. Local fire chief Denis Lauzon described the scene as one akin to a war zone.
Dozens of residents gathered hours after the explosion at the edge of a wide security perimeter and many feared the worst. About a kilometer (0.6 miles) down the town's main street, flames danced around a railway tanker that sat at the edge of the road.
"On a beautiful evening like this with the bar, there were a lot of people there," said Bernard Demers, who owns a restaurant near the blast site. "It was a big explosion. It's a catastrophe. It's terrible for the population."
Demers, who fled his home, said the explosion was "like an atomic bomb. It was very hot. ... Everybody was afraid."
Charles Coue said he and his wife felt the heat as they sprinted from their home after an explosion went off a couple of hundred yards (meters) away.
"It went boom and it came like a fireball," he said.