Five killed, 65 injured after US Amtrak train derails and crashes in Philadelphia
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 13 May, 2015, 11:23am
UPDATED : Thursday, 14 May, 2015, 12:07am
Associated Press and Reuters
in Philadelphia
Rescuers climb into the wreckage of the Amtrak train, which crashed in Philadelphia with more than 200 passengers on board. Photo: Reuters
A passenger train derailed and overturned in Philadelphia, killing at least five people and leaving a horrific scene of mangled metal and broken glass.
Emergency personnel said 65 people were hurt, six of them critically, after the accident on the train heading from Washington DC to New York. Others walked away from the crash with light injuries.
Emergency personnel work at the scene of a deadly train derailment in Philadelphia. Photo: AP
The train’s seven train cars, including the engine car, were crushed, turned over on their side or upside down in the late evening disaster (morning, Hong Kong time). Witnesses said the front of the train as it went into a turn, and the six cars behind it then went off the rails.
Amtrak said there were 238 passengers and five crew members aboard the derailed No 188 train. It said Amtrak service along the whole Northeast train corridor between New York and Philadelphia had been suspended.
Officials declined to speculate on the cause of the incident, though some experts suggested the crash may have been caused due to a track defect or wheel failure.
“I’ve never seen anything so devastating. They are in pretty bad shape,” said Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer, referring to the train cars.
“You can see they completely, completely derailed from the track, destroyed completely and they’ve been overturned completely.”
Emergency personnel help a passenger at the scene of a train wreck. Photo: AP
An NBC affiliate in the city reported, citing officials, at least 50 people were injured when eight to 10 cars from the train derailed.
A fire department supervisor who did not give his name said there were "lots of injuries" at the scene of the wreck in the city’s Port Richmond neighborhood along the Delaware River, but he did not elaborate.
The front of the train was going into a turn when it shook. In a video posted on social media, passengers could be heard crying and others were telling victims to crawl forward.
Former Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy, who was a passenger on the train, told MSNBC that his rail car flipped over, but he escaped with minor cuts and bruises.
"Those conductors and the one woman who works in the café car for Amtrak, they got pretty banged up," Murphy told the cable network. "Both were pretty wobbly but their first and immediate course of action was to make sure the people were OK."
An Associated Press employee, Paul Cheung, was on the train and said it appeared it went off the tracks. He said he was fortunate to be at the back of the train and the front of it “looks pretty bad.” He said he saw “some people mangled up”.
Emergency personnel transport a victim at the scene of a train wreck. Photo: AP
Ten patients were taken to Temple University Hospital in the city, spokeswoman Giselle Zayon said, but she was unable to describe the extent of their injuries.
CNN quoted the Federal Bureau of Investigation as saying there was no indication that terrorism may have been a factor in the derailment. The weather was fair at the time of the crash.
Passengers are seen inside the derailed Amtrak train in Philadelphia. Photo: Reuters
Sharon Achuff, 51, who lives along the tracks about 182 metres from the wreck, said she was sitting on her front stoop when she saw a bright, flashing blue light, followed by a loud boom.
Television footage broadcast on MSNBC showed dozens of emergency workers scrambling around the wreckage with flashlights, with train cars strewn about in a zig-zag pattern. Photos from the scene showed emergency personnel loading injured people onto stretchers and backboards.
Police swarming around the crash site, in Port Richmond, a working-class area, told people to get back, away from the train. They pleaded with curious onlookers: “Do not go to scene of derailment. Please allow first responders room to work.”
Roads all around the crash site were blocked off. Waves of firefighters continuing toward the train cars, taking people out.
Several injured people, including one man complaining of neck pain, were rolled away on stretchers. Others wobbled while walking away. An elderly woman was given oxygen.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on its Twitter account that it was "currently gathering information" regarding the derailment.
Passengers of an Amtrak train that crashed gather after the crash. Photo: AP
CNN said Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter would hold a news conference shortly.
Port Richmond is a working-class neighborhood that has recently become a popular place to live among younger adults in the city.
The crash was the latest in a series of rail accidents on heavily traveled passenger trains over the past year.
In March, 21 people were injured in Los Angeles when a commuter train struck a car that turned in front of it near the University of California, a month after 50 people were hurt and an engineer fatally injured when a Los Angeles-bound Metrolink train struck a pickup truck.
In February, six people were killed and a dozen injured when the Metro North commuter train they were riding in north of New York City hit a car stalled on the tracks during rush hour. The driver of the vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee, also died.
With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
