About 27 tons of explosive chemicals lost during rail shipment in U.S.: media

NEW YORK, May 22 (Xinhua) -- About 60,000 pounds (about 27 tons) of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used as a fertilizer and in explosives, went missing on a rail shipment in the United States in April and has still not been found, reported The New York Times on Sunday.

Dyno Nobel, an explosive manufacturing company, notified the federal government of the loss and said in a statement that it was investigating what happened during the nearly two-week journey from Wyoming to California, according to the report.

The company said the rail car with the material was sealed when it left a manufacturing site in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the seals were still intact when it arrived in Saltdale, California.

"The initial assessment is that a leak through the bottom gate on the rail car may have developed in transit," the statement said.

A report made on May 10 to the National Response Center, a federal emergency call center for railroad incidents, said that the rail car left Wyoming on April 12 and arrived in California empty.

Dyno Nobel said that the rail car was transported back to Wyoming for further investigation and that it had "limited control" of the train's activity while the cargo was being transported.