At least 6 dead as train careers off bridge on to motorway

A PASSENGER train on the inaugural run of a high-speed service has plunged from a bridge near Seattle, killing at least six passengers and injuring motorists on the highway below.

The Amtrak train was carrying 78 passengers and five crew members when it derailed about 40 miles south of Seattle before 8am yesterday, the company said.

Authorities said at least six people were killed and 77 are in hospital, with the death toll expected to rise in what is likely to prove one of the worst train crashes in recent US history.

President Donald Trump called for an overhaul of the country’s infrastructure in light of the crash.

The train was travelling from Seattle to Portland, and was passing through Dupont, a city in Washington state, when part of the train fell on to the busy interstate.

The motorway is one of the main thoroughfares between the west coast of the United States and Canada.

Ed Troyer, a spokesman from the Pierce County Sheriff ’s office, said several vehicles on Interstate 5 were crushed by falling train cars and multiple motorists were injured. Miraculously, none of the motorists were among the fatalities.

“All of a sudden, we felt this rocking and creaking noise, and it felt like we were heading down a hill,” passenger Chris Karnes told local media.

Emergency services work to clear the wreckage after an Amtrak train derailed and part of it fell from a bridge on to the busy Interstate 5 highway in Dupont, near Seattle, yesterday morning The number of people in hospital last night, following the...