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- CBC: The same train caught fire hours earlier, before rolling into town
- At least 13 people are dead and about 37 are unaccounted for
- About 1,500 evacuees can return home Tuesday, officials say
- An air brake release may have led to the tragedy
(CNN) -- A runaway train that was a proven fire hazard was barreling towards the town of Lac-Megantic, while patrons at the Musi-Café were enjoying a summer night.
They were sitting on the pub's front porch on Saturday, when 72 tanker cars carrying crude oil jumped the track and unleashed an inferno.
When 1,500 residents who evacuated from the Canadian town return on Tuesday, they will find its center gutted for blocks as if it had been bombed.
The Musi-Café is no longer standing. Some of its patrons have been counted among the 13 confirmed dead.
"We know that there will be many more," said police Lt. Michel Brunet.
Loved ones have reported another 37 missing. Officials in the town 130 miles east of Montreal say some were likely vaporized by the sheer intensity of the blaze, which burned for 36 hours.
"Hot zones" lingering more than two days after the train derailment in Quebec were hampering authorities' efforts to continue their search for missing people.
Forensic specialists have asked victims' families for hair samples, clothing, anything to help identify their loved ones.
In a town of just 6,000 residents, most everyone is affected by the deaths -- and by the loss of homes.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has described the scene as a "war zone."
Hundreds returning home may have no house to return to.
Rolling oil bomb?
The train had already been on fire hours earlier, Canadian broadcaster CBC reported, sourcing fire officials.
Firefighters in the town of Nantes, a few miles away extinguished a small blaze on the freight train.
When they left, it was still parked there, where it was supposed to stay for the night, the company responsible for the train said.
Air brakes holding it in place likely failed, allowing the train to barrel downhill into Lac-Megantic, the Montreal, Main & Atlantic Railway said. Investigators plan to check the brakes, once the crumpled, burned out tankers are accessible.
The train had picked up speed before rolling into the town not far from the U.S. state of Maine.
"Usually they're traveling between 5 and 10 miles an hour," said Quebec police officer Benoit Richard. "On that night, this train was going at least between 30 and 40 miles an hour."
Sonia Pepin heard the train like never before that night. The tracks are just a few feet from her home. The whole house shook, she said.
Investigators with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada found the locomotive event recorder, which they can analyze for information on throttle position and speed, among other data.
Oil transport safe?
More and more petroleum products have been gliding over rails in tanker cars in the last 5 years, according to the railroad industry.
And every month since April some of them have derailed. Good fortune may have prevented the Lac Megantic disaster from occurring sooner.
Last month, four Canadian Pacific rail cars carrying flammable petrochemicals used to dilute oil derailed on a flood-damaged bridge spanning Calgary's Bow River, according to the Calgary Herald.
In another incident involving Canadian Pacific, five tankers containing oil derailed in rural Saskatchewan in May, spilling 575 barrels of crude, the Toronto Sun reported.
A month earlier, 22 Canadian Pacific rail cars jumped the tracks near White River, Ontario. Two of the cars leaked about 400 barrels -- almost 17,000 gallons -- of oil, The Globe and Mail in Toronto reported.
Canadian Pacific was also involved in a stateside spill in March. Fourteen cars on a milelong, 94-car train derailed in western Minnesota, about 150 miles northwest of Minneapolis, spilling about 30,000 gallons of crude, Reuters reported.
A swan song
The night the Musi-Café disappeared in flames, Quebecois musician Guy Bolduc had been giving a concert there.
The pub's Facebook page is still standing and is filling up with messages of condolence, as has a page created for the victims of the disaster.
Authorities suspect that some of those still missing may have been in the pub at the time of the accident.
Bolduc's fans are searching for him on social media.
"All of his fans, all over Quebec, but also his fellow singers (of whom I am one) hope to see him again alive!!! Come on my GuyBol, come out of your hiding place," one member wrote.
They fear the concert may have been his last.
CNN's Holly Yan, Umaro Djau, Jonathan Mann, Pierre Meilhan and Deanna Hackney contributed to this report.
