One woman aboard a subway train died and 83 other people were taken to hospitals in Washington on Monday after a downtown Metrorail tunnel filled with smoke during the evening rush, National Transportation Safety Board officials said. Two of the injured were reported to be in critical condition.
The train had just left L’Enfant Plaza station on the system’s Yellow Line and was on its way to the Pentagon when smoke from an unknown source in the tunnel began filling the cars.
Officials said the driver was unable to back the train into the station, trapping passengers in the cars for 30 to 40 minutes before firefighters arrived.
Photo: EPA
The agency’s initial finding was that the smoke had been caused by an electrical “arcing event,” where electricity jumps from a third rail to another conductive source, investigator-in-charge Michael Flanigon said at a news conference late on Monday.
It was unclear where the electricity had jumped from, he said, but there was water in the tunnel, which is a conductive element and could have been the reason for the problem.
The train, which had eight cars, stopped about 275m south of the station and many of the passengers evacuated before firefighters arrived, Flanigon said.
The riders walked about 100m to a vent shaft and climbed up a staircase three or four stories to get to ground level. In order for them to do so, the electricity for the third rail was turned off.
Emergency crews helped the rest of the passengers leave the smoke-filled train, with riders walking through the tunnel back to the busy station, which serves as a transfer point for five of the system’s six lines.
L’Enfant Plaza station was evacuated and closed for several hours, while service on the Yellow and Green lines was suspended for the rest of the day.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser met with some of the injured passengers at George Washington University Hospital on Monday night.
“We are all saddened by today’s fatality aboard the Metrorail and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the passenger who passed away,” the mayor said in a statement.
“I want to thank our brave first responders who assisted passengers during the evacuation and with treatment at the scene,” she said.
Officials at MedStar Washington Hospital Center said on Monday night that 11 patients had been treated there and released, while seven remained at the hospital, including one in a critical condition and another in a serious condition.
One firefighter was injured, emergency officials said.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority posted a message on its Web site to inform riders of planned changes to rail service for yesterday.
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