Fire extinguished after train derailment sparks chemical spill in Kentucky

A major fire caused by a train derailment in the U.S. state of Kentucky was extinguished on Thursday afternoon, a day after the incident led to the spilling of molten sulfur, train operator CSX said.

The CSX train derailed around 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday near Livingston, a remote town with about 200 people in Rockcastle County. Residents were encouraged to evacuate.

Two of the 16 cars that derailed carried molten sulfur, which caught fire after the cars were breached, CSX said in a statement.

It's believed that the fire released the potentially harmful gas sulfur dioxide, but officials have not released results of measurements taken from air monitoring equipment that was being deployed on Wednesday night.