Seven people were killed and a dozen injured when a crowded New York commuter train struck a car stalled on the tracks near suburban White Plains during rush hour on Tuesday evening, in what officials said was the railroad’s deadliest accident.
Six people on the train died, as well as the driver of a Jeep Cherokee that got stuck on the tracks and was hit at about 6:30pm, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference.
“This is a truly ugly and brutal sight,” he told reporters after visiting the scene in Valhalla. “The third rail of the track came up from the explosion and went right through the [rail] car; it’s a devastatingly ugly situation.”
The third rail, which carries 750 volts of direct current, tore through the floor of the first car of the train, charring the carriage and sending billows of smoke into the air. Damage to the other seven cars was minimal.
“It’s actually amazing that not more people were hurt on that train,” Cuomo said.
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino told reporters 12 people were injured, 10 of them seriously. Eleven of the injured were taken to Westchester Medical Center, he added.
Passengers described frightening scenes as the train was evacuated.
“The smoke was orange coming off the train, it was still on fire at that point. The front car was billowing heavy smoke out of the windows and doors,” said Jared Woodard, an employee of BGC Financial in New York, who was on the train traveling home to Chappaqua.
Hundreds of passengers from the eight-car train were taken to a rock-climbing gym for shelter, authorities said. The average number of passengers on the train is 650 on a line that carries commuters through affluent New York City suburbs such as Westchester County, one of the richest in the US.
Media reports said the driver of the car got out briefly to try to push it off the tracks, then got back in before it was hit by the train.
Officials did not say why the car was stalled on the tracks.
The train left Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan at 5:44pm and was headed north to Wassaic in southeast New York state.
Parts of the train line were to remain closed yesterday, said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which was arranging for shuttle buses to fill the gap and warned of crowds and delays for thousands of commuters.
The Harlem Line is part of the Metro-North Railroad commuter rail service, which runs five lines.
Tuesday’s crash was the latest in a string of accidents involving Metro-North trains in recent years, which have drawn strong criticism.
The US National Transportation Safety Board released a report late last year that identified common safety issues with the railroad following probes of five accidents that left six people dead and another 126 injured between May 2013 and March last year.
The safety board said it was sending investigators to the scene of Tuesday’s crash.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS