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PHILADELPHIA — Emergency crews picked through the wreckage of a derailed Amtrak train
Wednesday, looking for survivors and victims of a crash that killed at
least six people and left dozens injured, as the National Transportation
Safety Board and F.B.I. dispatched investigators to the scene.
The
New York-bound train jumped the tracks at about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday,
tossing around the 238 passengers and five crew members, as most of the
train’s passenger cars tumbled onto their sides and crumpled. One car
was particularly badly mangled, looking like nothing so much as a
crushed and torn soda can.
On Wednesday, a giant crane moved into position and began attempting to lift the damaged cars. The wreck severed Amtrak’s
Northeast Corridor, one of the nation’s busiest rail routes, and the
Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s commuter train line
from Philadelphia to Trenton, stranding thousands of passengers and
threatening to snarl travel for days or weeks to come.
Not
everyone on board had been accounted for, said Michael A. Nutter, the
mayor of Philadelphia, and some people who congregated at Philadelphia’s
30th Street Station said they had not been able to locate loved ones,
raising the prospect of a rising toll as the search continued.
Witnesses on Amtrak Derailment
Witnesses described the scene after a New
York-bound Amtrak train derailed and overturned late Tuesday in
Philadelphia, killing six people.
Publish Date May 13, 2015.
Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters.
“We need to match up the manifest with all the individuals who walked off,” Mr. Nutter said.
“It is an absolute disastrous mess,” he said. “Never seen anything like this in my life.”
Temple
University Hospital received 54 patients from the wreck, including one
who died overnight from a massive chest injury, Herbert Cushing, the
chief medical officer, said Wednesday morning. He said that most of the
patients suffered fractures from being thrown around the train, and that
25 remained in the hospital, including eight people in critical
condition.
“There
were lots of people from all around the world” among the injured, he
said, including patients from Albania, India and Spain.
As
officials worked to notify passengers’ family members about their
relatives, Mr. Nutter said most of them were not from the Philadelphia
area, with more hailing from Washington, New York and New Jersey.
The
Amtrak wreck occurred in the Port Richmond section of the city,
northeast of the 30th Street Station. Amtrak service continued between
Philadelphia and Washington on a modified schedule, but no trains were
able to run between Philadelphia and New York.
Passengers
described a chaotic, terrifying scene, with people thrown against
walls, furniture and each other, and luggage and other loose items
flying through the air and hitting people.
“The
guy next to me was unconscious, so I just kind of picked him up and
slapped him in the face and said ‘Hey buddy, get up, get up,’ and he
came to,” said Patrick J. Murphy, a former congressman from
Pennsylvania, who was on the train.
The
engine pulling the train separated from the passenger cars, left the
tracks, rumbled through a dirt area and came to rest diagonally across
other sets of tracks.
After
the crash, emergency workers carrying flashlights and ladders moved
frantically from car to car helping passengers off the train, some
bloodied, others dazed. Parts of the damaged cars were so badly mangled
that firefighters had to use hydraulic tools to rescue people trapped
inside.
“Train
cars are overturned,” the Philadelphia fire commissioner, Derrick J. V.
Sawyer, said. “They’re in horrible shape. There’s a bunch of debris
down there, sharp objects. It’s a dangerous situation for responders,
even more dangerous for the riders out there.”
The
train had at least seven cars, including the engine, and six cars
overturned. One car struck a steel utility pole, and a stretch of bent
and twisted track could be seen near the wreckage, indicating the sheer
force of the crash.
Amtrak identified the train as Northeast Regional Train 188, from Washington to New York. Remarkably, most people were able to walk away from the crash site.
Injured
passengers were taken from the scene in ambulances and on buses to
hospitals. Aria Health, which has two hospitals nearby, said it had
received 59 patients, including walk-ins. Maria Cerceo Slade, a
spokeswoman, said most of the patients had minor injuries.
The
cause of the crash was not known. It occurred close to Frankford Avenue
and Wheatsheaf Lane, near a bend in the track. Mr. Nutter said it was
too early to tell whether it had played a role in the crash or if there
were other factors.
“We have no idea what kind of speed there we’re talking about,” Mr. Nutter said, or “what else happened out there.”
He added, “And I’m not going to speculate on that.”
Still,
the derailment on Tuesday took place in roughly the same area of track
that was the site of one of the nation’s deadliest rail accidents. On
Labor Day in 1943, a 16-car Pennsylvania Railroad Congressional Limited
train carrying military service members on leave derailed near the same curve, killing 79 people and injuring 117.
Officials
concluded that a hot journal box had burned off and caused an axle to
snap, which sent the train catapulting off the track.
Now,
Amtrak trains on the Northeast Corridor are allowed to travel at speeds
exceeding 100 miles per hour. But conductors are required to proceed at
reduced speeds in urban and residential areas, such as where the
derailment occurred.
The
Northeast Corridor, which runs between Boston and Washington, is one of
the railroad’s busiest and most profitable lines. But officials have
long complained that the agency needs more subsidies from Congress to
improve the railroad’s deteriorating infrastructure and replace aging
equipment.
Amtrak
canceled service between New York and Philadelphia, and modified three
other routes. Mr. Nutter said Amtrak service through Philadelphia would
most likely be suspended for the rest of the week.
“It is completely wiped out down there,” he said.
The
derailment prompted a large response from several federal, state and
local agencies. More than 200 police officers and 120 firefighters went
to the crash site, as did dozens of officials from the F.B.I., the
Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.
Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania said he was in contact with state and local officials and was closely monitoring the situation.
An
Amtrak spokesman said an emergency hotline, 800-523-9101, had been set
up for relatives of anyone who may have been on the train.
At
Penn Station, where the train had been scheduled to arrive at 10:34
p.m., stranded passengers flanked an Amtrak help desk as an employee
repeated, “Service is canceled indefinitely.”
Amtrak
employees said that New Jersey Transit would honor Amtrak tickets to
several nearby stations, including Trenton. Other passengers tried to
find alternate routes home on regional bus services like Megabus and
BoltBus.
Into
the early morning, train cancellations piled up, not just from Amtrak
but also from New Jersey Transit and other services that use the same
section of track that is now mangled.
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