Chemical Leak From Rail Yard Near Cincinnati Prompts Evacuations

Residents of several communities outside Cincinnati were ordered to leave or seal off their homes on Tuesday after officials warned that a train car in the area was leaking a dangerous chemical that could cause an explosion.

Emergency officials in Hamilton County, Ohio, said that residents had begun reporting an odor in the air a little before 1 p.m. on Tuesday. Firefighters, a local hazardous materials team and other emergency responders determined that the smell was coming from a rail yard in the Whitewater Township area west of Cincinnati, where a train car was leaking styrene. The chemical is used to make plastic and fiberglass, is highly flammable and is dangerous when inhaled.

“I tasted and smelled it,” said Marcus Greer, who lives in the small community of Hooven, not far from the rail yard. “It was burning my throat and eyes.”

Mr. Greer said he had immediately been accosted by the “burnt metal taste” in the air when he stepped outside his brick home on Tuesday afternoon.

The leak unleashed an odor that was detectable across the region. Several miles away, across the border in Bright, Ind., Eileen Kailholz said she had noticed a “weird” smell when she went outside to tend to her bird feeders, unlike anything she had ever smelled before.

At first, officials urged residents near the Ohio rail yard, at the intersection of U.S. Route 50 and State Route 128, to go inside immediately and close their windows and doors.