Former President Donald Trump is slated to visit East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday as the small rust belt town is grappled by a train derailment and subsequent chemical fallout.
Local and state authorities previously evacuated all residents within one mile of the February 3 derailment and started a controlled burn of industrial chemicals on the vehicle to decrease the risk of an explosion, which could have sent shrapnel throughout the small town.
Vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen used to manufacture PVC, was emitted from five train cars in the form of massive plumes of dark smoke, prompting concerns about air and water quality for the millions of people who live in the Ohio River Basin.
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