Black smoke billowed from several mangled train cars hours after the Friday accident.
Porter County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Larry LaFlower says officials have evacuated 50 to 150 homes within about a mile of the tracks as a precaution.
He says the crash happened about 2:15 p.m. when one train pulling mostly empty tankers of ethanol was stopped on the tracks and a second train rear-ended it. He says a third train on parallel tracks then came up and struck the derailed cars.
Hazardous materials teams and federal investigators are on the scene along with dozens of firefighters and emergency personnel.
