On February 3, 2023, a freight train carrying vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether derailed along the Norfolk Southern Railway in East Palestine, Ohio, United States. Emergency crews conducted a controlled burn of the spill at the request of state officials, which released hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air. As a result, residents within a 1 mi (1.6 km) radius were evacuated, and an emergency response from agencies across three states was initiated. The EPA published a list provided by Norfolk Southern which documented the cargo of each car, the type of car, the type of hazard (if any) associated with the contents of each car, as well as the extent to which each of the twenty train cars were affected by the derailment. Vinyl chloride present in multiple tankers was released and burned in a controlled manner to prevent a more dangerous explosion.
The derailed train was a Norfolk Southern freight train, which consisted of three locomotives with ES44AC #8152 leading, nine empty cars, and 141 loaded cars. The train was operating from the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis yard in Madison, Illinois, to Norfolk Southern’s Conway Yard in Conway, Pennsylvania.
Around 8:55 pm EST on February 3, 2023, approximately 50 cars derailed in East Palestine, a town near the Ohio–Pennsylvania border with a population of 4,800. Out of the 141 cars on the train, 20 were carrying hazardous materials, with 14 of them carrying vinyl chloride. Other chemicals present included butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, isobutylene, combustible liquids, and benzene residue. Norfolk Southern reported to the EPA that the cars containing butyl acrylate and ethylhexyl acrylate were breached in the crash.