Train crash poison gas cloud : Eight dead, 240 injured

A US freight train carrying chlorine gas struck a parked train, killing eight people and injuring more than 240 others, nearly all of them sickened by a toxic cloud that persisted over this small textile town of Graniteville, South Carolina.

Authorities ordered all 5,400 people within a mile of the crash to evacuate in the afternoon because chlorine was continuing to leak and the gas was settling near the ground as temperatures dropped.