Washington Rush-hour Metro Crash, 6 Dead

Source: www.latestissues.us

WASHINGTON:Two Metrorail trains collided Monday at the height of Washington’s evening rush hour, killing six people and injuring 76 in the worst-ever accident in the US capital’s subway system, officials said.

Hundreds of emergency responders rushed to the chaotic scene in the northeast Washington, where one train rammed into a stationary train on the same track, compressing the rear car of the lead train like an accordion before leapfrogging on top of it.

Mayor Adrian Fenty confirmed there were six deaths but warned the toll could rise in what he described as “the deadliest accident in the (33-year) history of our Metro train transit system.”

The collision involving the six-compartment trains on an above-ground portion of the popular Red Line took place at 5:02 pm (2102 GMT) near the Fort Totten Metro station, said Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) general manager John Catoe.

Rescue teams were seen carrying injured passengers on stretchers down the tracks and using heavy equipment to cut through the carriages’ outer shell in an effort to get to those inside the train, as emergency crews searched for more dead and wounded.

“We have to at this time continue to act and behave as a rescue scene,” Fenty said.

With Washington just one day past the summer solstice, rescue workers took advantage of extended sunlight hours as they searched for any additional bodies and injured passengers who may be trapped at the crash scene.

Among the dead was the female operator of the second train that rammed into the first as it awaited orders to proceed along the tracks, Catoe said.

“The next train came up behind it and for reasons we do not know plowed into the back of the train,” he added.

The glaring safety failure — whether human error or system malfunction — will raise serious questions among investigators just nine months after the last major US train crash.

Last September, 25 people were killed when the conductor of a commuter train in Los Angeles was sending text messages on his mobile phone while at the controls.

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials were on the scene at the Washington crash and launched an investigation.

“We are committed to investigate this accident until we determine why this happened and what must be done to ensure it never happens again,” Catoe said.

President Barack Obama said he and the first lady were “saddened” by the crash.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy,” he said in a statement

Thousands of government employees — including White House staff — ride the rail system into work each day.

Fenty described a horrific crash scene. The rear train, he suggested, may have been traveling at considerable speed moments before the accident.

“It was going at a speed that would have made that initial car literally compress to about one-fourth of the original size,” Fenty told CNN, strongly hinting the toll could rise as rescue crews struggle to pick through the mangled wreckage.

“We have to go in (to the compressed rear car) and find out if there’s any remaining bodies.”

Dozens of stunned passengers, safely evacuated from the train, stood by the tracks close to the collision site, or were helped down off the other carriages by rescue workers. Some were limping and were clearly hurt.

For passenger Abra Jeffers, the crash was a harrowing welcome to the nation’s capital, where he was heading home from his first day of work Monday.

“I was on the train that got hit. I thought it was an explosion,” Jeffers, 25, told AFP. “I thought it was like the train bombings in London. There was smoke and dust everywhere.”

Train passenger Jody Wickett told CNN she was texting a friend when she was sent hurtling through the air of the subway car.

“We felt like we hit a bump and about five or 10 seconds later, the train just came to a complete halt and we went flying,” Wickett said.

“I went in there to try and help and (there was) debris and people pinned under and in between the two cars. We were just trying to get them out and help them as much as possible, pulling back the metal and whatnot.”

Metro carries an average of some 800,000 people a day, and is divided into five lines criss-crossing the city and traveling into the suburbs of neighboring states Maryland and Virginia.

But many Metro officials have been urgently calling for more funds to repair the aging system, warning it was coming under increasing strain.

Source: www.latestissues.us