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Grain silo accident causes rail havoc: Vestby

NTB/The Local
NTB/The Local - [email protected]
Grain silo accident causes rail havoc: Vestby
A grain silo in Vestby split open pouring 400 tonnes of grain on the rail tracks. Photo: Vidar Ruud / NTB scanpix

Rail services in south-east Norway face disruption after 600 tonnes of grain held in a mill silo burst open and landed on the train line in Vestby, Akershus on Wednesday.

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A grain silo ripped open at 7.30am at Vestby Mill and Grain Silo Inc, and 600 tonnes of wheat grain poured out, most of it onto the Østfold railway tracks.

Train lines are now closed in both directions. All trains between Ås and Moss are not running, NSB stated on Wednesday morning on their website.

Both police and fire fighters were on the scene to secure the site. Nobody knows yet what caused the accident in the 30-year-old silo.
 
Knut Svae, a worker at the mill, said to Moss Avis: “There was a leak discovered in one of the silos last week. The damage was fixed, but now this happened. I guess we're talking about a materials failure in the silo. This will become an insurance case.”
 
Svae tells that the silo that collapsed contained food wheat from farmers in Follo.
 
Police chief Børge Løge said to NTB: “It's about a substantial amount of grain. The silo contained 600 tonnes of grain and almost all of it poured out - mainly onto the railway track. The railway is closed in both directions.”
 
A witness to the incident in Vestby told of hearing a loud bang before the spillage.
 
A man who witnessed the accident from a petrol station just a few meters away, said: “I just heard a bang and then there was a big dust cloud.”
 
Camilla Godager, a shop worker at the Vestby grain mill, was at work from 7am, just before the accident. She said: “Everything was as normal the first half hour, then I heard a terrible boom at 7.30am. I ran out and saw that grain was pouring down from the silo onto the railway track. We called the police right away.”
 
Early on Wednesday morning emergency crews began the work to secure the site. The clearing up operation has not started yet, but it is believed the task may take a long time.
 
No one was hurt when the accident happened.

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