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Watchdog to fine Russian Railways $429,707 for fuel oil spill in Vladimir Region

On November 16, 2020, the cars of the freight train, which included 64 tanks with fuel oil, derailed leading to one death and environmental damage

© Sergei Karpukhin/TASS

VLADIMIR, March 29. /TASS/. Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources estimated the damage to the environment caused by the fuel oil spill near the city of Vladimir in November last year at 32.5 mln rubles ($429,707), the agency said in a statement on its website on Monday.

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According to the statement, the watchdog has sent its demand for voluntary compensation for the damage to the Russian Railways company.

On November 16, 2020, the cars of the freight train, which included 64 tanks with fuel oil, derailed on the Novka-1 - Terekhovitsy section of the Gorkovskaya railway. As a result of the accident, one person was killed. According to the Emergency Situations Ministry, the area of the leakage of oil products at the scene was 12,500 square meters.

In December, the watchdog’s experts reported a tenfold excess of the maximum permissible concentration of oil products in soil samples taken at the scene.

"Employees of the department [the interregional department of the watchdog for the Ivanovo and Vladimir regions - TASS] calculated the amount of damage done to the soil. It totals 32,454,862 rubles. By now, a demand for voluntary compensation for environmental damage has been forwarded to Russian Railways," the statement said.

The watchdog’s regional department opened an administrative offense case. An order to eliminate the identified violations has been sent to the Russian Railways company.

The Volga Transport Investigation Department continues to investigate the criminal case under Part 2 of Article 263 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Violation of traffic safety rules and the operation of railway transport, resulting in the death of a person by negligence).

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