An environment group has called for a ban on moving oil by rail network as North America got enmeshed again in twin train derailment disasters. Authorities and operators in the U.S. and Canada are racing against time to contain the double tragedies.

The Centre for Biological Diversity said a moratorium on transporting crude oil via trains should be imposed because such disasters had continued to grow parallel with the boom in crude production from shale since 2009. The oil and railroad industries are playing Russian roulette with people’s lives and our environment,” Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist at the center, said in a statement.

Not only lives could be at stake every time a train derailment disaster happens. There are some cities and towns ill-equipped to respond to the kinds of explosions and spills during such disasters, Matteson said, making it all the more unfortunate for the environment. “Millions of gallons of crude oil have been spilled into waterways.”

Data from the Association of American Railroads said that from 2009 through 2013, the number of oil carloads have jumped over 40-fold. Those times, 435,560 carloads were shipped. In 2014, it was estimated 500,000 carloads were shipped. According to BNSF Railway, a typical rail car can transport 700 barrels of oil.

On Saturday, a train of the Canadian National Railway Co headed to Levis, Quebec carrying crude oil derailed near Gogama in Ontario. It ignited 30 to 40 cars on fire and had leaked some of the into a waterway. Three days ago, a train of BNSF train, also loaded with oil, derailed in a rural area south of Galena, Illinois. About 21 cars that derailed carried 630,000 gallons of Bakken crude.

No casualties were reported in both incidents, which brings to four the number of oil train wrecks in the past three weeks alone in North America. A report by Bloomberg said CNRC is now building a long track, about 1,500-foot (457 metre), to bypass the burning train, while BNSF plan to reopen a track in some part of rural Illinois.

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