Train derailments and explosions and chemical spills

Gimpy

The Living Force
source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_dc_metro_train_derailment

By BRETT ZONGKER and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writers Brett Zongker And Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press Writers – 9 mins ago


WASHINGTON – One Metro transit train smashed into the rear of another at the height of the capital city's Monday evening rush hour, killing at least six people and injuring scores of others as the front end of the trailing train jackknifed violently into the air and fell atop the first.

Cars of both trains were ripped open and smashed together in the worst accident in the Metrorail system's 33-year history. District of Columbia fire spokesman Alan Etter said crews had to cut some people out of what he described as a "mass casualty event." Rescue workers propped steel ladders up to the upper train cars to help survivors scramble to safety. Seats from the smashed cars spilled out onto the track.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said six were confirmed dead. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin said rescue workers treated 76 people at the scene and sent some of them to local hospitals, six with critical injuries. A search for further victims continued into the night.

A Metro official said the dead included the operator of the trailing train. Her name was not immediately released.

The crash around 5 p.m. EDT took place on the system's red line, Metro's busiest, which runs below ground for much of its length but is at ground level at the accident site near the Maryland border in northeast Washington.

Metro chief John Catoe said the first train was stopped on the tracks, waiting for another to clear the station ahead, when the trailing train, one of the oldest in the Metro fleet, plowed into it from behind.

Officials had no explanation for the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board took charge of the investigation and sent a team to the site. DC police and the FBI also had investigators at the scene to help search the wreckage for any overlooked injured or dead passengers and evidence.

Officials would not say how fast the train was traveling at the time of the accident. The crash occurred in an area with a sizable distance between rail stations in which trains are allowed to travel at higher speeds, Metro spokeswoman Candace Smith said.

The trains' devices that record operating speeds and commands are being turned over to the NTSB, Smith said.

Each train had six cars and was capable of holding as many as 1,200 people. Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said the trains were bound for downtown. That would mean they were less likely to be filled during the afternoon rush hour.

The trains had pulled out of the Takoma Park station and were headed in the direction of the Fort Totten station.

More than 200 firefighters from D.C., Maryland and Virginia eventually converged on the scene. Sabrina Webber, a 45-year-old real estate agent who lives in the neighborhood, said the first rescuers to arrive had to use the "jaws of life" to pry open a wire fence along rail line to get to the train.

Webber raced to the scene after hearing a loud boom like a "thunder crash" and then sirens. She said there was no panic among the survivors.

Passenger Jodie Wickett, a nurse, told CNN she was seated on one train, sending text messages on her phone, when she felt the impact. She said she sent a message to someone that it felt like the train had hit a bump.

"From that point on, it happened so fast, I flew out of the seat and hit my head." Wickett said she stayed at the scene and tried to help. She said "people are just in very bad shape."

"The people that were hurt, the ones that could speak, were calling back as we called out to them," she said. "Lots of people were upset and crying, but there were no screams."

One man said he was riding a bicycle across a bridge over the Metro tracks when the sound of the crash got his attention.

"I didn't see any panic," Barry Student said. "The whole situation was so surreal."

At Howard University Hospital, Dr. Johnnie Ford, an emergency room doctor, said a 14-year-old girl suffered two broken legs in the accident. A 20-year-old male patient "looked like he had been tumbled around quite a bit, bumps and bruises from head to toe," Ford said.

Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said less than two hours after the crash that federal authorities had no indication of any terrorism connection.

"I don't know the reason for this accident," Metro's Catoe said. "I would still say the system is safe, but we've had an incident."

Monday's crash was the third major subway or commuter rail crash in a big city in the past nine months. In the earlier accidents:

• In September 2008, a commuter rail train and a freight train crashed in Los Angeles, killing 25 people. The crash was blamed on an engineer on the commuter rail sending text messages on a cell phone.

• Last month about 50 people were injured in Boston when one trolley rear-ended another. The conductor admitted to sending a text message when the crash occurred.

No reason was given for the Washington crash, but some safety experts are concerned about the recent increase.

"I'm not sure if everyone in the safety system is paying the proper attention that needs to be paid," said Barry Sweedler, a San Francisco-based safety consultant and former investigator and manager at the NTSB. "These things shouldn't be happening."

However, Robert Lauby, a former NTSB rail investigator, said the increase in accidents could well be mere coincidence.

"Just because you had them doesn't mean there's a specific issue that caused them," Lauby said.

The only other time in Metrorail's 33-year history that there were passenger fatalities was on Jan. 13, 1982, when three people died as a result of a derailment underneath downtown. That was a day of disaster in the capital — shortly before the subway crash, an Air Florida plane slammed into the 14th Street Bridge immediately after takeoff in a severe snowstorm from Washington National Airport across the Potomac River. The plane crash killed 78 people.

**************************************************************************************************************************************

Seems people are not paying attention with disastrous consequences....
 
Re: Re:train crashes

Gawan said:

Yeh, here's another couple of recent accidents:

http://www.sott.net/article/263681-Death-toll-set-to-rise-as-40-still-missing-following-massive-Lac-Megantic-Quebec-oil-train-explosion

http://www.sott.net/article/263668-Russian-train-derails-in-Krasnodar-region-Summer-heat-might-have-distorted-tracks

Both of those events had oddities about them too...
 
Re: Re:train crashes

Kniall said:
http://www.sott.net/article/263668-Russian-train-derails-in-Krasnodar-region-Summer-heat-might-have-distorted-tracks

Both of those events had oddities about them too...

And here is another one:
http://www.sott.net/article/263844-Passenger-aircraft-emergency-lands-in-East-Siberia

A passenger aircraft with 45 people on board made an emergency landing in east Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Territory after one of its engines stalled

And here's too an interesting coincidence with region names. Krasnodar and Krasnoyarsk. There are more than 4 thousand km between them, but thought that the Krasno- (red/beautiful in Russian) similarity in both names was curious.
 
Re: Re:train crashes

Gawan said:
Not sure how relevant this is, but I was doing a search to see if I could find out more information on what happened here and came across this article from this month back in 2010 referencing an electrical facility at Bretigny-sur-Orge that disrupted train service:

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/rail-transport-chaos-in-paris-after-lightning-strike/story-e6frfku0-1225887529919#ixzz0shATcuZO
 
Re: Re:train crashes

truth seeker said:
Gawan said:
Not sure how relevant this is, but I was doing a search to see if I could find out more information on what happened here and came across this article from this month back in 2010 referencing an electrical facility at Bretigny-sur-Orge that disrupted train service:

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/rail-transport-chaos-in-paris-after-lightning-strike/story-e6frfku0-1225887529919#ixzz0shATcuZO

:umm:
 
Just a few days after the canadian accident...

_http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23298374

BBC said:
At least six people have been killed and 30 injured, French officials say.

The intercity train had just left Paris and was heading towards Limoges when it derailed, crashing into a station platform.

Investigations are getting underway into the cause of the accident, which happened at 17:14 (15:14 GMT).

Rescuers have been searching throughout the night for anyone who might be trapped in the wreckage.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, speaking from the crash site late on Friday, said: "The toll is currently six dead, 30 injured, of whom eight are in a serious condition."

The wounded were all being treated in local hospitals, he added.

BBC Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield said there was a strong possibility that the number of fatalities could rise again because some of the victims were very badly hurt.

Guillaume Pepy, president of the SNCF rail service, said six carriages had derailed during the accident. The train's third and fourth carriages derailed first and the others followed.

He expressed "solidarity" with the victims and their families, adding "rail catastrophes are something that upset the whole public".

Investigations will be undertaken by the SNCF, judicial authorities and France's BEA safety agency.

Local media said a group of people had attempted to steal from the victims shortly after the crash, by pretending to be taking part in the rescue efforts. They reportedly threw stones at emergency workers as they tried to reach passengers.
Crowded

French transport routes were particularly busy at the time of the crash due to the run-up to a holiday weekend marking Sunday's Bastille Day.

French President Francois Hollande visited the scene earlier on Friday and expressed his shock at the accident.

He said that the station would be closed for three days whileinvestigations were carried out.
Map

"We should avoid unnecessary speculation. What happened will eventually be known and the proper conclusions will be drawn," he said.

The rail company SNCF said 385 passengers were on board when the train crashed. The station platforms were crowded at the start of a holiday weekend.

British student Marvin Khareem Wone was on a train on another platform when the carriages of the intercity ploughed into the station.

"The train went off the railway; it just went on the platform and kind of flew in the air for a second and went upside down," he told BBC Radio.

"The first and the second coach were completely destroyed. I really thought no-one could survive that because it was completely mashed up. Everyone was crying and running everywhere. A woman was crying for her daughter who was still on the train."
'Images of war'

Because of the damage to the station, he said ambulances could not reach the platform and the lift was not working.

Other media reports spoke of passengers being electrocuted and crushed.

"I saw many wounded women children trapped inside," Vianey Kalisa, who was waiting for his train from Bretigny to Paris, told AFP.

"People were screaming. A man had blood on his face. These are images of war," he said.

The train had left Paris-Austerlitz station at 16 :53 local time and was due to arrive at Limoges-Benedictins at 20:05, SNCF said in a statement.

The BBC's Hugh Schofield says that in May, the company warned passengers that points work was being carried out in the area, where intercity and commuter lines dovetail.

It is not clear if the earlier points problems are connected with Friday's crash, he says.
 
Hi Tomek
This was picked up by SoTT yesterday evening http://www.sott.net/article/263854-BREAKING-Passengers-Electrocuted-and-Crushed-as-Train-derails-in-Paris-suburb-station-of-Bretigny-sur-Orge (although not the same story/source) :)
 
Two train incidents within a few days of each other, both in French communities. Looking at this metaphorically, is French culture "going off the rails"?
 
dugdeep said:
Two train incidents within a few days of each other, both in French communities. Looking at this metaphorically, is French culture "going off the rails"?

Just as a precision, the incident that happened in Québec has been caused by an US railway company. So maybe the question should be " Another way of killing innocent people by the US companies.
 
Re: Re:train crashes

Another train derailment, this time in Spain:
http://www.sott.net/article/264305-Spain-train-crash-reports-of-at-least-20-killed
 
Re: Re:train crashes

Keit said:
Another train derailment, this time in Spain:
http://www.sott.net/article/264305-Spain-train-crash-reports-of-at-least-20-killed

There were several others too last week (as in the sott comment from the article Keit posted above):

Welshpool train crash: Tractor driver's miracle escape after 70mph service smashes into his vehicle

Tourists hurt as Thai train derails -> also here were reports that one week before on the same route a train derailed and this one got special attention cause tourists were involved

Plus one in Germany one day after the English incident (only in German but with pictures)
 
Re: Re:train crashes

Concerning the accident in Spain they don't know exactly what happened. The big news were that the train was ruling to fast, at 180 km per hour in a place where the maximum was 80km. But I just hear at the radio that this rail and the train were extremely in good shape and very modern: if the train was ruling too fast the system of the rails would have stopped the speed of the train! Some people also said that they hear an explosion some seconds after the accident. So.

Some also say that this accident comes in a good time for the president that is implicated in a sort of monetary scandal. Everything is very confuse. The tragedy is enormous and amplified by the medias. In our collective memory we remember what happened some years ago, evidently. And the medias play the same game: manipulating sentiments, giving contradictory information, or information that is not sure, or no information at all.

But the president is there, with the people of Galicia, of Spain. He is very sad. The King also is very sad. (irony from me.) For some days we will forget the crisis, the cuts, the people without house, the people without food, the miserably salaries, the scandal of robbery and lies. We will forget everything in face of this tragedy.

You can see here the moment when the train went out of the rail:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/25/videos/1374749180_392391.html
 
Re: Re:train crashes

loreta said:
You can see here the moment when the train went out of the rail:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/25/videos/1374749180_392391.html

It looks to me that just before the train leaves the tracks, there is a small explosion or something above the train in the area behind the engine. I stopped it at the point you can see what look to be flames above the train and it was still on the tracks, or so it seems to me, at that time.
 
Re: Re:train crashes

Nienna said:
loreta said:
You can see here the moment when the train went out of the rail:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/25/videos/1374749180_392391.html

It looks to me that just before the train leaves the tracks, there is a small explosion or something above the train in the area behind the engine. I stopped it at the point you can see what look to be flames above the train and it was still on the tracks, or so it seems to me, at that time.

Before that, the train (rear wagons) get lifted up and down, like a wave and then seems to be this electronically explosion and the total derailing taking place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH_IjAxDwLo
 
Back
Top Bottom