Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) has ordered residents of East Palestine, Ohio, to evacuate after temperature changes at the site of a train derailment raised the potential for a “major explosion” that could send shrapnel flying a mile from the site.

“East Palestine: Residents living within a mile of the train derailment site who have not yet left their homes are asked to immediately evacuate due to the potential of a major explosion,” DeWine tweeted on Sunday evening.

East Palestine: Residents living within a mile of the train derailment site who have not yet left their homes are asked to immediately evacuate due to the potential of a major explosion. pic.twitter.com/F2BWmBipPx

— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) February 6, 2023

DeWine included a screenshot of a press release from his office in the tweet, saying that the evacuation order applied to anyone who was living within a mile of the train derailment site. “Within the last two hours, a drastic temperature change has taken place in a rail car, and there is now the potential of a catastrophic tanker failure which could cause an explosion with the potential of deadly shrapnel traveling up to a mile,” it read.

“Although teams are working to prevent an explosion from happening, residents living within a mile of the site are advised to immediately leave the area,” the press release continued. “While most individuals in the one-mile radius have already evacuated, local officials say that more than 500 people have declined to leave their homes.”

DeWine also announced that he had activated the Ohio National Guard to assist local authorities, adding that the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Ohio Emergency Management Agency, and Ohio EPA were already on the scene.

The train derailed on Friday evening just south of Youngstown, Ohio, according to the initial reporting — and some 20 of more than 100 cars were reported to be carrying hazardous materials.

Fires have been burning at the site of the derailment since Friday, but officials have been closely monitoring the fires and watching for any possible changes in air and local water quality. A shelter-in-place order was initially given for the town of East Palestine, but Governor DeWine has urged those inside a one-mile radius of the site to evacuate.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed President Joe Biden in a statement Sunday after the president allowed a Chinese spy balloon to fly over the U.S. for several days last week.

McConnell’s statement comes after the U.S. military used an F-22 Raptor on Saturday to take out a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina using a single air-to-air A9X sidewinder missile that was fired at an altitude of approximately 58,000 feet.

“As usual when it comes to national defense and foreign policy, the Biden Administration reacted at first too indecisively and then too late,” McConnell said. “We should not have let the People’s Republic of China make a mockery of our airspace. It defies belief to suggest there was nowhere between the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and the coast of Carolina where this balloon could have been shot down right away without endangering Americans or Canadians. This was a reminder of the PRC’s brazenness and President Biden missed the opportunity to defend our sovereignty, send a message of strength, and bolster deterrence.”

The 80-year-old Kentucky Republican senator noted subsequent reports that have surfaced about Chinese spy balloons operating in other parts of the Americas and said that Biden needed to work with allies and partners to combat the threat of “brazen Chinese espionage.”

“I hope the President’s belated decision to finally do the right thing carries over into his soon-to-be-released annual budget request,” McConnell continued. “Whether it’s spy balloons or spy satellites, hypersonic weapons or stealth aircraft, massive naval construction or nuclear stockpile expansion, China’s military modernization effort is no joke. Last year President Biden proposed an absurd budget that would have cut defense funding after inflation. Let’s hope his budget proposal this year is more decisive, serious, and strong than the embarrassment that just played out in our skies.”

Fox News reported on Sunday that Biden administration officials believe that Chinese spy balloons flew over some parts of the U.S. under the Trump administration but cautioned that the Trump administration did not know about the incursions. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) suggested that it was possible the Chinese spy balloons were only detected after Trump left the White House because the U.S. may have “only learned about them in retrospect by studying historical data.”