Shootings suspect ‘has no remorse’
A PASSENGER train has slammed into a freight train parked on a side track in South Carolina, killing two Amtrak employees and injuring more than 110 people.
It was the third deadly wreck involving Amtrak in less than two months.
The Silver Star was on its way from New York to Miami with nearly 150 people aboard at about 2.45am when it ploughed into the CSX train at an estimated 59mph, Governor Henry McMaster said.
The crash happened around a switchyard about ten miles south of Columbia.
The governor said investigators have yet to determine how the Amtrak train ended up on that stretch of track.
“The CSX was on the track it was supposed to be on,” Mr McMaster said. The National Transportation Safety Board has sent investigators.
Mr McMaster said 116 people were taken to four hospitals. The main trauma hospital in the area had three patients in critical or serious condition, with the rest treated for minor injuries such as cuts, bruises and whiplash, said Dr Steve Shelton, Palmetto Health director of emergency preparedness.
The locomotives of both trains were left crumpled, the Amtrak engine on its side. One carriage in the middle of the Amtrak train was snapped in half, forming a V off to one side of the tracks.
“It’s a horrible thing to see, to understand the force involved,” Mr McMaster said after touring the scene.
Many passengers were asleep when the train began shaking violently and then slammed to a halt, passenger Derek Pettaway told CBS reporters.
“You knew we’d hit something or we’d derailed,” he said.
Elliot Smith told newspaper of Columbia that he was staying with a friend when they heard what sounded like a propane tank exploding.
“The sound was so loud, you instantly knew it was bad,” he said.
On Wednesday, a chartered Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a strategy retreat slammed into a rubbish truck at a crossing in Virginia, killing one person in the truck and injuring six others.
And on December 18, an Amtrak train ran off the rails along a curve during its inaugural run near Tacoma, Washington, killing three people and injuring dozens. It was going nearly 80mph, more than twice the speed limit.
Police have said the extreme right-wing suspect in drive-by shootings targeting African migrants in Italy was “lucid and determined, aware of what he had done”.
They said suspect Luca Traini, demonstrated no remorse for the two-hour shooting spree on Saturday that wounded five men and one woman, all African migrants. Police believe Traini, who had stood as a candidate for the anti-immigration Northern League, was retaliating for the killing of an Italian teenager by a Nigerian suspect.