OXNARD: At least 28 people were injured early on Tuesday when a Los Angeles-bound commuter train smashed into a truck stuck on the tracks, but there were no reported fatalities, authorities said.

The stranded vehicle exploded into a fireball after being hit by the four passenger cars and the locomotive pushing the Metrolink train, a fire department official said.

Three passenger cars came to rest on their side after flying off the tracks near Oxnard, about 75 miles from Los Angeles, a spokesman for Metrolink said.

A total of 48 passengers and three crew were on board the train when it crashed, at around 5:45 am (1345 GMT). Twenty-eight people were being treated at hospital, with four in critical condition, officials said.

The driver of the truck fled the vehicle — which was ripped into two by the impact — and was later arrested, a fire department official said.

Fire Department spokesman Joe Garces said the driver of the train had spotted the truck and had begun slowing down before the crash.

“We do not know yet the exact speed the train was traveling at impact but the emergency protocols had been initiated before the incident,” Garces told KTLA television.

A passenger on board the train told of panic as the train raced through the fireball caused by the explosion.

“As I was coming through the crossing I had a feeling of death come over me,” Joel Bingham told KTLA.

“I thought ‘Oh my god, we could die.’

“We went from 60 mph to a stop and we all lived. I can’t believe it,” he added.

The three toppled cars are reported to have been fitted with a crash energy management system, which prevents crumpling of the carriages by absorbing the force of impact. They remained intact after the accident.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2015

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