‘No one is coming to save us’: residents of towns near toxic train derailment feel forgotten

People living near the chemical disaster are wary of contamination, and even across the state line Pennsylvanians are worried

As a dense cloud of toxic smoke descended across Darlington in western Pennsylvania, Patrick Dittman knew that the catastrophic train derailment across the state line in East Palestine could also pose a danger to his family.

The 30-year-old bartender lives and works just a few miles from East Palestine, Ohio, where the Norfolk Southern's 1.7-mile-long freight train carrying a hotchpotch of dangerous chemicals partly derailed and caught fire on 3 February.