The derailed train is seen under a collapsed roof after it crashed into the station.—Reuters
The derailed train is seen under a collapsed roof after it crashed into the station.—Reuters

NEW YORK: At least three people were killed and more than 100 injured, some of them critically, when a New Jersey Transit train derailed and crashed through the station in Hoboken, New Jersey, during the morning rush hour on Thursday, US media and a transit official said.

There were well over 100 people with injuries, many of them with critical injuries, New Jersey Transit spokeswoman Jennifer Nelson told reporters.

Dramatic pictures posted by commuters showed a train carriage that appeared to have smashed right through the station concourse, collapsing a section of the roof, scattering debris and wreckage and causing devastation.

ABC News said on its website that New Jersey Transit was reporting many passengers were trapped.

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey did not have an estimate of when PATH service will resume, a spokesman said.

The Federal Railroad Administration official said in post on Twitter that its investigators were en route to the scene.

The worst passenger train crash in recent years in the United States was the crash of an Amtrak train in Philadelphia in May, 2015 that killed eight passengers and injured 186 Hoboken lies on the west bank of the Hudson River across from New York City. Its station, one of the busiest in the metropolitan area, is used by many commuters travelling into Manhattan from New Jersey and further.

A news channel here said “it appears something happened to the train engineer at the controls”, but the report was not verified by port authority officials.

AP adds: People pulled concrete off bleeding victims and passengers kicked out windows and crawled out amid crying and screaming after the arriving New Jersey Transit train smashed through a barrier at the end of its track and ground to a halt in a covered waiting area. It apparently knocked out pillars, collapsing a section of the roof onto the first car.

Ross Bauer, an IT specialist who was heading to his Manhattan job from his home in Hackensack, was sitting in the third or fourth car when the train ploughed into the historic 109-year-old station.

“All of a sudden, there was an abrupt stop and a big jolt that threw people out of their seats. The lights went out, and we heard a loud crashing noise like an explosion that turned out to be the roof of the terminal,” he said. “I heard panicked screams, and everyone was stunned.”

The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately known. The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators.

Investigators will want to know what the operator was doing before the crash and whether the person was distracted, said Bob Chipkevich, who formerly headed the NTSB train crash investigations section.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2016

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