Ferocious Fire in Gulf of Mexico
HOLMES: Welcome back to AROUND THE WORLD, everyone. Here are some of the top stories we're following. In Ft. Meade, Maryland, closing arguments under way in the court- martial of Bradley Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who is charged with the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history.</s>MALVEAUX: He's accused of handing over a trove of documents to Wikileaks. One of the most serious charges Manning faces is aiding the enemy. which could carry a maximum penalty of life in prison. Now Manning has already pleaded guilty to nearly a dozen lesser charges that carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.</s>HOLMES: Check this video out. A Wisconsin state trooper escapes injury when, wait for it, a semi clips the side of his patrol car all caught on dash-cam as these things are.</s>MALVEAUX: And Trooper Jim Reese had to stop a driver for speeding. He was walking back to the vehicle when all of this unfolded when that crash happened. Now the truck driver was cited for not paying attention, obviously, failure to move over. Unbelievable.</s>HOLMES: You're going to clip a car, don't make it a police car. Now that ferocious fire that we've been following aboard a natural gas well in the Gulf of Mexico now, thank goodness, nearly out. Federal officials also tell us that gas has stopped flowing from that damaged rig. This fire broke out two days ago after workers hit an unexpected pocket of gas.</s>MALVEAUX: Everyone was evacuated safely, thank goodness. Officials say the only contamination so far has been a light sheen that appeared to quickly dissipate. Now it's unclear just how the crews plan to secure that well.</s>HOLMES: And back to our top story, that train crash in Spain, I mean it's just unbelievable when you see the pictures, horrible accident caught on video, this by a surveillance camera. You can see just how it flies off the tracks.</s>HOLMES: Yeah, unbelievable. The car behind the lead car seems to go off first. Officials say now that 80 people have been killed in this accident, 140 or so injured. One of our iReporters was actually near the scene of the crash when it happened. Ivette Rubiera took these photographs you see there, smoke coming from the wreckage, the train lying on its side, the first locomotive that we see there on fire, some of the carriages split in two, just a scene of utter devastation.</s>MALVEAUX: Ivette joins us on the phone from Spain. And, if you could, you went running to the scene. What did you hear and what did you see?</s>IVETTE RUBIERA, IREPORTER (via telephone): Well, we were driving toward Santiago de Compostela. We were coming from Coruna and we saw the traffic stopping, and assumed it was an accident on the highway but it wasn't. It was actually -- you know, my husband said, look to the right, and when we looked to the right, we saw the huge flames and the fire so we stopped, but we really couldn't do much. We just stood there. Everybody was in shock and in horror because it was a really devastating, devastating sight to see.</s>HOLMES: I can imagine it. And how quickly did help get on the scene? This is a pretty populated area.</s>RUBIERA (via telephone): Well, it took, because it was during traffic time, so it took them about five minutes.</s>HOLMES: Right. Right, now ...</s>RUBIERA (via telephone): For the first ...</s>HOLMES: Yeah. We were saying earlier, too, and give some context for us about why so many people are in that area, or in Santiago de Compostela. It's a very significant time for religious people there.</s>RUBIERA (via telephone): Yes, it is. It's actually a national holiday. Today they celebrate one of the apostle's day, so what they do is they do celebrations last night. They were supposed to, and they were supposed to do celebrations today. But due to what happened, nothing is going to be done.</s>MALVEAUX: I can only imagine the mood there today, the day after something this horrific is happening. What are people saying? Are they praying? Are they trying to acknowledge in some way this tremendous loss?</s>RUBIERA (via telephone): Well, it's a -- you know, it's a small town, so everybody kind of knows someone. So, you know, it's very sad.