— 19th December 2017
An Amtrak passenger
train derailed on Monday during its inaugural run along a faster route
through Washington State, sending part of the train crashing down onto a
major highway and killing an unknown number of passengers, authorities
said.
The derailment caused “multiple fatalities,” Ed Troyer, a
spokesman for the local sheriff’s office, told reporters at the scene,
though he did not offer a specific number. The train struck several cars
on the highway, he added, causing injuries but no additional deaths.
Seventy-seven people were transported to hospitals in
Pierce and Thurston counties, the Tacoma-based CHI Franciscan Health
healthcare network said in a statement. Four of them were considered
“level red” patients with the most severe injuries.
Approximately 78 passengers and five crew members were aboard the train, Amtrak said in a statement.
People escaped the derailed train by kicking out windows, passenger Chris Karnes told local news outlet KIRO 7.
“All of a sudden, we felt this rocking and creaking noise,
and it felt like we were heading down a hill,” Karnes said. “The next
thing we know, we’re being slammed into the front of our seats, windows
are breaking, we stop, and there’s water gushing out of the train.
People were screaming.”
The derailment occurred on the first day Amtrak trains
began using a new inland route between the cities of Tacoma and Olympia,
part of a project to reduce travel time, according to an October news
release from the state’s transportation department.
The rerouting takes trains along Interstate 5, eliminating
a major choke point for passenger trains in Tacoma and allowing trains
to reach speeds of 79 miles per hour (127 km per hour), the department
has said.
Monday’s train, which had been scheduled to depart Seattle
at 6 a.m. (1400 GMT) for Portland, Oregon, was the first to run along
the new route, which uses tracks owned by a local commuter line.
It was not immediately clear whether the derailment, which
came during a busy travel time one week before the Christmas holiday,
was connected to the rerouting.
The train derailed around 7:30 a.m. (1530 GMT) in DuPont. A
photograph posted by a Washington State Police spokeswoman showed an
upside-down train car partially crushed on the highway, with a second
car dangling off the overpass.
