Strong tornado winds derailed nearly four dozen train cars in North Dakota as part of a storm system that caused five tornadoes across the Dakotas.
A spokesperson for BNSF Railway, Kendall Sloan, said that a train had stopped due to a tornado warning near Steele, North Dakota, on Wednesday night. High winds then caused 43 empty coal cars to come off the tracks.
Fortunately, no one was injured, and the derailed cars were not carrying any hazardous materials. BNSF cleanup crews were at the scene on Thursday.
The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado touched down near Steele around 8 p.m. on Wednesday. Another tornado hit southwest of Selfridge, North Dakota, at 5:40 p.m. that same evening on the Standing Rock Tribal Nation.
Three more possible tornadoes were reported in north-central South Dakota on Wednesday night. No injuries were reported, and survey crews were still investigating the damage in South Dakota to confirm if it was caused by tornadoes.
Though the bad weather was moving out of the Dakotas, severe thunderstorms were still possible in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin on Thursday, according to the weather service.