Evacuation ordered as derailed train leaks octane near Lethbridge, Alta.

BARONS, Alta. – An evacuation order has been issued near Lethbridge, Alta., after a train derailed on Monday morning and began to leak.

A statement from the provincial government says the rail cars were leaking octane in Barons, Alta.

It says an evacuation order has been issued for the area of Highway 23 and Township Road 120, including Keho Lake and the nearby campgrounds.

A statement from Canadian Pacific Railway says the train derailed at 7:40 a.m. and that a team was sent to the scene.

Lorne Hickey, reeve of Lethbridge County, says the evacuation order covers about a two-kilometre radius of where the derailment occurred.

Hickey says he doesn’t know how many people were being told to leave, but that officials had moved people off the lake, and that a golf course in the area had also been evacuated.

Ron Gorzitza, deputy mayor of Barons, said the village of just over 300 is about six kilometres upwind of the derailment and so the community is not part of the evacuation.

“I’m in contact with the first responders that are out at the site, and the last call was that there are three cars that were leaking and that they’d stopped up two of them and were working on the third one,” Gorzitza said.

He said he has not heard reports of any injuries.

Lethbridge County posted on its website Sunday afternoon that a reception centre for displaced residents was set up in Nobleford, a community about 14 kilometres south of Barons.