Rescue workers on Wednesday sifted through twisted metal and other debris from the wreck of an Amtrak train that derailed in Philadelphia, killing at least six people and injuring scores of others, while investigators reviewed data to determine the cause of an accident.
Authorities said they did not know why the New York City-bound train carrying 243 people jumped the track at about 9:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday (0130 GMT Wednesday). One of the seven cars landed upside down and three were tossed on their sides, while passengers and luggage were sent flying, survivors said.
Philadelphia-area hospitals and health systems reported treating more than 200 people, a city emergency official said. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said authorities had not yet accounted for everyone aboard the train.
He said six people were confirmed dead. The conductor was injured, Nutter said at a news conference, and was giving a statement to police. Officials of the National Transportation Safety Board had recovered recorders, or black boxes, from the train and were analysing data, Robert Sumwalt, a NTSB member, said at the news conference.
He said officials were also reviewing training records of the crew. The agency was also investigating train speed, track condition, equipment and human performance, among other factors, he said. The crash of Amtrak train No. 188, en route from Washington, D.C. with a crew of five, was the latest in a series of rail accidents on heavily traveled passenger train routes over the past year.
The train derailed in the city's Port Richmond neighborhood along the Delaware River, near the site of a 1943 rail accident that killed 79 people. Amtrak, a publicly funded national passenger rail line, said Amtrak service along its busy Northeast corridor between New York and Philadelphia had been suspended indefinitely.
"We do not know what happened here. We do not know why this happened," Nutter told reporters. The crash and the issue of Amtrak funding are likely to come before Congress later Wednesday, when the House Appropriations Committee meets to discuss the transportation budget for the next fiscal year.
Dr. Herbert Cushing, Temple University Hospital's chief medical officer, said the dead suffered massive chest injuries. Most of the injured at Temple suffered fractures, he said at a news conference. Port Richmond is a working-class neighborhood that has recently become a popular place to live among younger adults in the city. Michael Hand, 44, who lives a few blocks from the crash, said he was outside drinking a beer at the time. "There was a flash and then there was a big boom," he said.
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