• Collision between two Union Pacific trains leaves two injured • Resultant fire took seven hours to extinguish

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Two Union Pacific train crew members were killed and two others were injured when two freight trains collided head-on in north-east Arkansas early on Sunday, Arkansas state police said.

The collision happened about 3am in Hoxie, a small town about 90 miles (145km) north-west of Memphis Tennessee. A resulting fire took about seven hours to extinguish, according to a Union Pacific spokesman, Brandon Morris.

Authorities asked about 500 people within 1½ miles of the collision to leave their homes following the crash because of the fire, the Lawrence County sheriff’s office said. Most were allowed to return home by mid-morning on Sunday, according to the county emergency management director, Buddy Williams.

“The fire involved diesel and also there was a tank car that ruptured and it contained an [unknown] alcoholic beverage,” the Arkansas department of emergency management spokesman, Kendell Snyder, said. He said there were no other leaks.

“We don’t know the cause of the accident. We have no idea why these trains were on the same line,” Williams said, noting that no local residents were hurt.

It is at least the second head-on collision involving UP trains since 2012, when two collided in the Oklahoma Panhandle that June, killing three crew members and injuring a fourth.

The names of those killed and injured on Sunday were not immediately released by Union Pacific.

“We’re still conducting an investigation, we haven’t made any notifications,” Morris said. He did not know where the trains had originated or where they were headed. It was not immediately known how many cars the two trains were pulling, Morris said, but he said there were no other cars leaking any materials.

Morris said the National Transportation Safety Board has been notified and will take over the investigation.