Initial reports of the disaster Thursday described a collision, but aid workers said North Korean officials on Friday blamed an electrical accident with a train carrying explosives.
"What they've said is that two carriages of a train carrying dynamite - they were trying to disconnect the carriages and link them up to another train," Anne O'Mahony, regional director for Concern, told Irish radio station RTE from Pyongyang. "They got caught in the overhead electric wiring, the dynamite exploded and that was the cause of the explosion."
Accounts of the materials involved differed. Sparrow said the trains were carrying explosives similar to those used in mining. China's Xinhua News Agency reported the blast was blamed on ammonium nitrate - a chemical used in explosives, rocket fuel and fertilizer - leaking from one train. South Korea's unification minister said the trains were carrying fuel.
http://www.canada.com/national/story.html?id=9ca23c38-aef3-41d4-abbe-ee880b778fd6
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