Freight Cars Derail on Lehigh River in Pennsylvania After 3-Train Crash

Several freight train cars derailed onto the banks of the Lehigh River, a tributary of the Delaware River, in Pennsylvania on Saturday in a crash involving three trains that spilled diesel fuel and plastic pellets into the water, authorities said.

The National Transportation Safety Board was deploying a team of experts to the site of the crash, which involved an eastbound train striking another train that had stopped on the same track.

“The wreckage from the striking train spilled onto an adjacent track and was struck” by a westbound train, leading to the derailment of an unknown number of cars, the NTSB said.

Northampton County Emergency Management Services and the Lehigh County hazardous materials team responded to the derailment in Lower Saucon Township, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles east of Allentown.

There were “no evacuations, no injuries and no leaks from any containers,” Northampton County said on its Facebook page.

Pictures of the derailment, which occurred around 7:15 a.m., shared on social media show two locomotives on the banks of the river, one of them partially submerged, and several container cars derailed.

Diesel fuel and polypropylene plastic pellets spilled into the Lehigh River, Lower Saucon Police Chief Thomas Barndt said at a news conference. Containment booms were set up to capture the spill.

The Lehigh River provides drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people, and as a tributary of the Delaware River, it contributes to a drinking water supply for 15 million people, according to American Rivers, an environmental nonprofit.

Norfolk Southern owns the Lehigh Line, a major freight railroad route that snakes through New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Connor Spielmaker, a company spokesperson, said in a statement that the railroad company’s “crews and contractors will remain on scene over the coming days to clean up.” He added that Norfolk Southern would help the NTSB investigate how the crash occurred “to prevent others like it.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .