PHILADELPHIA
(AP) -- An Amtrak train headed to New York City derailed and tipped over
in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, mangling the front of it, tearing the
cars apart and killing at least five people. Dozens of passengers were
injured, and some climbed out of windows to get away.
Mayor Michael Nutter, who confirmed the deaths, said the scene was horrific.
"It is an absolute disastrous mess," he said. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."
He said there were train cars that were "completely overturned, on their side, ripped apart."
"It
is a devastating scene down there," he said. "We walked the entire
length of the train area, and the engine completely separated from the
rest of the train, and one of the cars is perpendicular to the rest of
the cars. It's unbelievable."
Firefighters said dozens of people were hospitalized and six were critically injured.
Train
188, a Northeast Regional, had left Washington, D.C. The front of the
train was going into a turn when it started to shake before coming to a
sudden stop.
An Associated Press manager, Paul
Cheung, was on the train and said he was watching Netflix when "the
train started to decelerate, like someone had slammed the brake."
"Then suddenly you could see everything starting to shake," he said. "You could see people's stuff flying over me."
Cheung
said another passenger urged him to escape from the back of his car,
which he did. He said he saw passengers trying to escape through the
windows of cars tipped on their side.
"The front of the train is really mangled," he said. "It's a complete wreck. The whole thing is like a pile of metal."
The
cause of the derailment was unknown, but Amtrak said it was
investigating. The area where the derailment occurred is known as
Frankford Junction and has a big curve.
Police
swarming around the crash site, in Port Richmond, a working-class area,
told people to get back, away from the train. They pleaded with curious
onlookers: "Do NOT go to scene of derailment.
Please allow 1st
responders room to work."
Roads all around the crash site were blocked off. Waves of firefighters continuing toward the train cars, taking people out.
Several
injured people, including one man complaining of neck pain, were rolled
away on stretchers.
Others wobbled while walking away or were put on
city buses. An elderly woman was given oxygen.
Former
U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy was on the train and said he helped people. He
tweeted photos of firefighters helping other people in the wreckage.
"Pray for those injured," he said.
Amtrak
said the train was carrying 238 passengers and five crew members. It
said rail service on the busy Northeast Corridor between New York and
Philadelphia had been stopped.
The National
Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering information about the
derailment. It said it was launching an investigative team, which would
arrive at site Wednesday morning.
Another
Amtrak train crashed on Sunday. That train, bound for New Orleans,
struck a flatbed truck at a railway crossing in Amite, killing the
truck's driver and injuring two people on the train.
In
March, an Amtrak train collided with a tractor-trailer that was stuck
on the tracks in North Carolina, injuring at least 55 people.
Port
Richmond, the site of Tuesday's derailment, is one of five
neighborhoods in what's known as Philadelphia's River Wards, dense
rowhouse neighborhoods located off the Delaware River.
Area resident David Hernandez, whose home is close to the tracks, heard the derailment.
"It sounded like a bunch of shopping carts crashing into each other," he said.
The crashing sound lasted a few seconds, he said, and then there was chaos and screaming.
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