Toxic chemicals from East Palestine train disaster spread to 16 states | 24 June 2024 | Toxic chemicals released during fires following the Norfolk Southern train derailment in Ohio last year spread to 16 states and likely Canada, according to a study released last week. The pollution, some of which came from the burning of vinyl chloride, a carcinogen, spread over 540,000 square miles, showing clearly "the impacts of the fire were larger in scale and scope than the initial predictions," the authors of the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, found. Lead author David Gay, coordinator of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program, said that he was very surprised by the way the chemicals had spread. "I didn't expect to see an impact this far out," he told The Washington Post.