In Wake of Lac-Mégantic Train Inferno, Anger Turns Toward Profit-Hungry 'Rail Empire'

As devastated families members in the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic received news from authorities that relatives still missing are now presumed dead—bringing the possible total deaths in last weekend’s train derailment to fifty people—anger is growing with the profit-hungry rail company behind the disaster.

While twenty bodies have been recovered, police officials on Wednesday met with members of thirty additional families who had unaccounted for relatives.

“We’ve met with the families of these deceased or potentially deceased persons,” said Quebec provincial police Inspector Michel Forget at a press conference, “and we informed them of the potential loss of their nears.”

Amid the sadness permeating the town, anger was also taking hold.

In one incident reported by the Montreal Gazette, a local resident responded in anger after he noticed an employee of the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway behaving aggressively” toward a newspaper photographer, the Gazette’s own John Kenney, who was taking pictures of the burnt out rail cars.

The Gazette reports (restricted):

But as news spread of the death toll, the growing focus on Edward Burkhardt, CEO of the rail company that owned the train, continued.