3 killed, 100 hurt in New Jersey train crash
HOBOKEN ( AFP) — A packed commuter train ploughed into a station in New Jersey during the morning rush hour Thursday, with three people killed and more than 100 injured, many of them in critical condition.
The train failed to stop as it pulled into Hoboken station at speed, went up over the blocks at the end of the track and rammed into a wall a few meters away, a New Jersey transit official told at the scene.
Michael Larson, another transit employee, told CNN he heard a “bomb-like explosion” as the train hit the bumpers with such force that it went airborne — hitting the station’s roof and causing it to partly collapse.
“It was going considerably faster than it should have normally been at the terminal,” he said. “It went up and over the bumper block, through the depot... and came to rest at the wall by the waiting room.”
Video and photos posted on social media showed major damage to the transit hub just over the Hudson river from Manhattan, with the train tangled in wires and debris from what appeared to be caved in portions of the roof.
Train # 1614 was arriving from Spring Valley when it struck the Hoboken terminal building at around 8:45 a.m. (1245 GMT), New Jersey Transit said in a statement, adding that all services were currently suspended in and out of the station.
Passengers quoted by US media described the train ramming at full speed into the bumper at the end of the track.
“We never slowed down,” Jim Finan, a commuter from New Jersey, told Fox News. “We ploughed, I mean, right through the bumper.”
NBC and CBS reported three fatalities from the early morning accident. No official toll was immediately available.