Two Washington subway trains collided during the Monday afternoon rush hour, killing seven people and injuring at least 75, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said yesterday.
Two patients had been in critical condition, but the condition of one of them was upgraded overnight, he said at a morning press conference near the scene of the accident.
Fenty called the crash the deadliest in the 33-year history of the city's Metro subway system.
District of Columbia officials said one train hit another train that had stopped at a platform, but the cause of the crash was not immediately clear. At least one car from the trailing train was hurled onto the top of the other in the accident, which occurred on above-ground tracks.
“Metro officials do not know the cause of the ... collision and are not likely to know the cause for several days as the investigation unfolds,” the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said on its Web site.
The crash occurred on the heavily traveled red line at about 5pm, between Fort Totten and Takoma stations on the northeastern outskirts of the city near the border with Maryland. Both trains were heading south into the city.
It was the first crash involving a passenger death since 1982, when three people were killed in a derailment. The Metro train system began service in 1976.
“What happened ... [was] one train was stopped waiting to get the order to pass ... The next train came up behind it and, for reasons that we do not know, collided into the back of that train,” John Catoe, general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, told reporters.
“We are committed to investigate this accident until we determine why this happened and what must be done to ensure it never happens again,” Catoe said in a statement.
The transit authority said one of those killed was a female train operator in the trailing train. The accident trapped passengers in one or more of the subway cars.
One witness described how one train appeared to collide with — and then run up and over — the second train.
“It was very mangled, everything is ripped out of there,” the woman, who was not identified, told the local ABC television affiliate.
Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board were at the crash site early yesterday collecting evidence.
“They will have to do both an investigation and then a release of the scene for us to clean it up,” Fenty told reporters at the scene.
Officials encouraged riders to avoid the red line, which they said would be “severely impacted” by the crash.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique