Police say it will take days to clean up the wreckage of a derailed freight train, it's feared, spilled tens of thousands of litres of sulphuric acid in north-west Queensland.
They have also revised the amount of the highly corrosive sulphuric acid the train was carrying from 200,000 litres to 819,000 litres.
An exclusion zone has been established after all 26 carriages overturned at the Quarrells site, 20 kilometres east of Julia Creek.
Zara Zaher has more.
Queensland police say one of the carriages has likely ruptured and it's possible that up to 31,500 litres of acid has leaked out.
Wet weather is hampering emergency services' efforts to reach the train, located roughly 100 metres from the nearest road.
The Aurizon train is believed to have been travelling from Townsville to Phosphate Hill before it came off the tracks.
Vince Stevens is the Queensland president of the advocacy group, Environmental Health Australia.
Mr Stevens says it's common for such quantities of acid to be transported in north-west Queensland.
"I suppose there are different uses for the acid because up to that part of Queensland there's quite a lot of mining and the easiest way to transport that would be across the rail network, otherwise you would have a lot of road trains and semi-trailers with tankers travelling on the roads trying to transport those sorts of volumes. But because of the resource sector, the demand for acid or chemical involved in that industry, that is the easiest and safest way to transport them."
Sulphuric acid, commonly used to manufacture chemicals and fertiliser, can cause severe burns if it comes into contact with human skin.
Professor John Edwards is a toxicologist from the Department of Environmental Health at Flinders University in South Australia.
Speaking to the ABC, he explained the potential environmental impact of the spill.
"The biggest issue for the environment is going to be the waterways -- high amounts of acid will kill animal and plant life in waterways. And until it is neutralised and the acid washed away with large amounts of water it can have that potential. So I think the emergency services will be acting first of all to stem the flow of the concentrated acid into waterways until they can get an element of control when they can commence neutralising before it can then pass on to the waterway."
Emergency crews are continuing the clean-up operation around the crash site.
An emergency declaration, and a two-kilometre exclusion zone, remain in effect.
Police Inspector Trevor Kidd says authorities have to exercise extra caution because of the nature of the substance, in addition to the remoteness and flooding in the area.
He says it's too early to tell how much damage has been caused.
"That's why we're assessing it. Geography isn't in our favour due to the remote location and it is some significant distance from major waterways and any major infrastructure. So we do have something going our way as far as that goes. But it is certainly challenging to make an affective assessment at this stage."
It's not yet clear what caused the train derailment.
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