Lake Megantic Quebec - Six years ago, on 6 Jul 2013, at 01:14, a runaway train loaded with volatile oil derailed in the centre of the small Quebec town of Lake Megantic, its disgorged contents erupting in a succession of fiery explosions which one witness described as "the vomiting bowels of hell."
 
The death and destruction wrought on that apocalyptic night was unprecedented on Canadian soil.
 
It killed 47 people, orphaned 27 children, incinerated the town centre, and spilled six million litres of toxic Bakken shale oil into the environment.
 
The disaster's damaging health and environmental effects continue to plague the community.
 
Though its circumstances were unique, Lake Megantic shares similar characteristics with other industrial disasters, negligent corporate practices, vague or non-existent rules and regulations, inadequate oversight and/or enforcement, and an under-resourced regulator deferential to an industry with broad powers to regulate itself.
 
Lake Megantic was the violent consequence of a series of policy decisions stretching back decades, which systematically eroded safety protections.
 
There remain many unanswered questions about its causes and accountability, including at the highest policy levels.
 
Government and industry leaders have sought to obscure rather than illuminate the truth.
 
They want the 2014 Transportation Safety Board report, restricted and flawed though it was, to be the last word on the disaster, and have repeatedly dismissed the idea of a public inquiry.
 
If there was ever a case for such an inquiry, this is it.
 
In the wake of the disaster, federal governments introduced a flurry of safety measures to rebuild shattered public confidence, accompanied by assurances that safety deficiencies have been remedied.
 
Six years after Lake Megantic have the lessons been learned?
 
Despite modest improvements, major safety gaps remain.
 
Longer, heavier, oil trains are currently running in record volumes through cities and towns across North America on over stressed and under-maintained tracks.
 
Accidents involving trains carrying dangerous goods are on the rise.
 
Efforts to remove the volatile components of diluted bitumen and Bakken shale before being loaded onto tank cars are few and far between.
 
Even the new tank car models developed post-Lake Megantic keep puncturing and their oil spilling, most recently near St. Lazare, Manitoba.
 
There has been an increase in train runaways since Lake Megantic, reflecting ongoing problems with train securement rules, with tragic consequences such as the fatal crash in the Rockies near Field, B.C. earlier this year.
 
Despite the decades long existence of advanced ECP braking systems as well as remote-controlled satellite-based systems for monitoring and stopping unwanted train movement, little has been done to implement these safety enhancing technologies on Canadian railways.
 
Transport Canada remains deferential to industry and lacking the resources necessary to fully discharge its responsibilities as an independent safety regulator.
 
The railways still largely draft the rules, blocking, diluting, delaying, or reversing regulations that drive up their costs.
 
Ironically, the presence of safety risks is acknowledged indirectly by government leaders, who bolster their case for pipelines with the assertion that they are much safer than rail.
 
This is a troubling, if inadvertent, admission from those whom the public expects to ensure the highest level of protection for all modes of oil transportation including rail.
 
The horror of what happened six years ago has faded in the public mind.
 
So too has the memory of why.
 
Susan Dodd in her book on the 1982 Ocean Ranger oil rig sinking off the Newfoundland coast, warned, "Time and time again, publics trust governments to ensure that companies operate prudently. Time and again, we are shocked by a new disaster caused by corporate negligence. We say, we will never forget. Then we forget. And then it happens again."
 
Let us not forget Lake Megantic.
 
Bruce Campbell - author of "The Lake Megantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied".