A coal train was derailed in Nebraska last night as tornados, forceful winds and hail storms struck several areas across the region.

According to Newsweek, approximately 130 train cars west of Ashby, located in the western part of the state, were affected by a tornado that hit on Sunday evening around 6:30 pm. 

When the incident took place, there were two employees on board, but fortunately, nobody was injured as the cars derailed along a major state highway. 

The cars at the back of the train were the ones that got blown off the tracks. Video footage from the scene depicted these cars overturned on their sides after the storm passed through. The aftermath of the tornado left the sky with a haunting grey hue.

Drivers watched in disbelief as the tornado wrecked havoc on the coal train. Cars were seen pulled over on the side of the road as people urgently called 911. 

The Ashby tornado was more than a mile wide, which is considerably massive as the average size of a tornado is about 500 feet. 

Officials from BNSF Railway, the largest freight railroad in America, and state police officers rushed to the scene.

Power lines went down in the area after the hectic incident, but electricity has since been restored, state police told Newsweek. 

The major road the train derailed by, Highway 2, was never closed down because of the incident. 

‘Once I got to the train, I felt like I had to stop and make sure if it was the head end to make sure they were okay,’ one witness, Jorge Valdez, told Newsday in relief.   

‘Glad it was the tail end of the train. Once I got to the head end, I saw one of the train crew come out and looked like he was okay.

‘It was unbelievable at first because it was my family and [my] first time witnessing something like that. We didn’t know what to do actually, so we just waited it out. Witnessed hail and strong winds.’ 

Last night, the National Weather Service (NWS) had issued a dire tornado warning for the Ashby area until 7:30pm, about an hour after the train wreck. 

The trail-derailing twister reportedly traveled through the Bingham and Hyannis areas as well.  

Simultaneously, multiple other natural disasters were reported throughout the country’s mid-region. 

Within the last 48 hours, there were 15 tornados, according to the University of Michigan’s tornado watch.

Ten of those natural disasters occurred Sunday night in Nebraska, while the others happened on Saturday in New Mexico and Oklahoma.  

As of Monday morning, there are non-tornado-related weather advisories in effect in Nebraska, according to AccuWeather. 

Kicking into effect at 2pm, the NWS issued a Red Flag Warning for low humidity and high-speed winds across several counties. 

Other Midwestern states are not out of the clear either.

‘Multiple corridors of severe thunderstorms are expected across the Upper Midwest today and tonight, with a severe weather outbreak including strong tornado potential possible,’ according to the NWS. 

The most dangerous time of day is anticipated to be during the afternoon when tornadoes will likely reach maximum strength. Severe hail storms and winds are to be expected as well. 

These worrying weather warnings directly affect more than 50 million Americans from the Rocky Mountains to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. 

‘A regional severe weather outbreak still appears possible across the Upper Midwest, with a threat of strong to intense tornadoes, very large hail, and swaths of damaging winds,’ the NWS cautioned.