State of emergency declared in Arkhangelsk Region after bridge span collapse and train cars derailing

State of emergency and disaster zone

A regional state of emergency has been declared in Arkhangelsk Region after freight train cars derailed when a span of a railway bridge collapsed. The announcement was made by the region's governor Alexander Tsybulsky on his Telegram channel. According to him, the threat of the bridge collapsing remains. The emergency zone covers eight municipal entities: the Vilegodsky, Velsky, Konosha, Kotlas, Lensky and Ustyansky districts, as well as the cities of Koryazhma and Kotlas. The region's Transport Minister Sergei Rodnev has been appointed to lead the response efforts, and, as Tsybulsky stated, the operational headquarters will coordinate with the Northern Railway on restoring the railway section.

What happened

The incident occurred on the morning of November 10: at 5:10 Moscow time, on the Cheremukha — Viled stretch, freight cars derailed after a span of the railway bridge over the Viled River collapsed. According to preliminary information from the Northern Railway service, no one was injured. Dmitry Rozhin, First Deputy Chairman of the Government of Arkhangelsk Region, stated that the tank cars in the derailed train were empty and no oil product spill occurred. Thus, according to the authorities, the incident involves infrastructure damage and an interruption of traffic on the section, rather than environmental contamination. Gazeta.Ru published a report on the incident; reports of other railway incidents in other regions in this news item are not related to this event.