News of the World

[kyonides]

Major Incident Declared After Two Trains Collide Near Salisbury, England

Several passengers have reportedly been injured after two trains collided near Salisbury, southern England, with authorities declaring the crash a “major incident”.

Wiltshire Police and Network Rail said the collision happened between Salisbury and Andover on Sunday at around 6:45pm at Fisherton Tunnel near Salisbury Station.

“We are currently at the scene of a train crash involving two trains between Andover and Salisbury. We are responding with the fire and ambulance service at the site close to London Road, Salisbury,” Wiltshire Police said in a statement.

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service declared the crash a “major incident”. Around 50 firemen from multiple local fire services are in attendance, according to The Guardian.

The trains involved were the Great Western Railway (GWR) 17:08 service between Portsmouth Harbour and Bristol Temple Meads and the South Western Railway (SWR) 17:20 from London Waterloo to Honiton.

Network Rail, which manages most of the rail infrastructure in Great Britain, said the rear carriage of the 17:08 GWR service “derailed after striking an object on its approach to Salisbury station”.

“The derailment knocked out all of the signalling in the area. Subsequently, the 17.20 South Western Railway service from London Waterloo to Honiton then collided with the Bristol train,” Network Rail added.

British Transport Police (BTP), ambulance, and the fire service are in attendance. Around a dozen people are believed to be injured.

All passengers have been evacuated from the trains. A BBC reporter claimed that none of those injured was in serious condition, and that one of the trains was on its side.

With no sign of eruption’s end, ash blankets La Palma island

Canary Islands (AP) — A volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma that has been erupting for six weeks spewed greater quantities of ash from its main mouth Sunday, a day after producing its strongest earthquake to date.

Lava flows descending toward the Atlantic Ocean from a volcanic ridge have covered 970 hectares (2,400 acres) of land since the eruption began on Sept. 19, data from the European Union’s satellite monitoring service, showed. On the way down the slope, the molten rock has destroyed more than 2,000 buildings and forced the evacuation of over 7,000 people.

But authorities in the Canary Islands, of which La Palma is part, have reported no injuries caused by contact with lava or from inhaling the toxic gases that often accompany the volcanic activity.

Experts said that predicting when the eruption will end is difficult because lava, ash and gases emerging to the surface are a reflection of complex geological activity happening deep down the earth and far from the reach of currently available technology.

The Canary Islands, in particular, “are closely connected to thermal anomalies that go all the way to the core of the earth,” said Cornell University geochemist Esteban Gazel, who has been collecting samples from the Cumbre Vieja volcano.

“It’s like a patient. You can monitor how it evolves, but saying exactly when it will die is extremely difficult,” Gazel said. “It’s a process that is connected to so many other dimensions of the inside of the planet.”

Signs monitored by scientists —soil deformation, sulfur dioxide emissions and seismic activity— remained robust in Cumbre Vieja. The Spanish Geographic Institute, or IGN, said that a magnitude 5 quake in the early hours of Saturday was not just felt on La Palma, but also in La Gomera, a neighboring island on the western end of the Canary Islands archipelago.

IGN said the ash column towering above the volcano reached an altitude of 4.5 kilometers (15,000 feet) on Sunday before heavier wind scattered it. Many nearby towns and a telescope base further north that sits on a mountain at 2,400 meters above sea level (7,800 feet) were covered in a thick layer of ash.


I might add some Spanish politician suggested they could bomb the slopes  to detour the lava to open fields to keep people safe. The outrage of the general public would overwhelm him not long after those comments.