At least three people were killed and at least 50 were injured when a train derailed in Montana on Saturday afternoon.
According to Amtrak, seven cars on the Empire State Building were damaged at around 4pm near Joplin, Mont, 200 miles north of Helena. About 146 passengers and 16 crew members were on board, according to Amtrack.
The train consisted of two locomotives and 10 cars.
“Amtrac is working with local authorities to transport the injured passengers, and to safely evacuate all other passengers,” the railway service said in a statement.
The Liberty County Sheriff’s Office said three people had been killed.
In an interview with Hill County, Mont Emergency and Emergency Services Coordinator Amanda Frequel, “more than 50 people were injured.”
She said hunters from six provinces were responding to the scene and that five hospitals were waiting to receive injured passengers. He said several medical helicopters were also parked nearby.
“Every living thing is doomed to failure,” said Ms. Frikel.
Authorities took the survivors to two different stations and conducted a head count. Emergency responders plan to place people in hotels as soon as their medical needs are met.
“Everyone around the district is helping,” says Reef Donna Wit, a resident of Tole County, Mont.
National Transportation Safety Board It’s on Twitter A “Go-Team” has been launched to investigate the scandal.
Megan Vandervet, who was visiting her Seattle friend, boarded the train on Friday night from Minneapolis.
When she woke up on Saturday afternoon, she was asleep in the first car.
“Since I was anxious to tell you the truth and I heard stories of train derailment,” said Vandervest, “our first thought was getting worse.” “My second thought was that crazy. We were wrong. Like, that doesn’t happen. ”
She soon told him. Her car was on the road.
But the car in the back was twisted, the back was completely flat, and the three cars in the back “fell completely off the tracks and separated from the train,” she said.
Speaking at the Liberty County Senior Center, where the passengers were being picked up, Vandervez said she was lucky she and her three companions were unharmed.
It sounded like “a lot of noise on the plane.”
Montana’s attorney general Austin Quodenson said Montana’s highway patrol troops were among those involved in the rescue operation. He said he prayed for the safety of all the passengers and crew on board.
Karen Jelly, who works at a cemetery in Havre, Mont, Holland, and Bonnie, said he was waiting for a scary phone call from authorities. “It would be so bad when we made that call,” she said.
Jelly, who visited Havre nine years ago, said the area was very welcoming.
“When things go awry, people gather around,” he said. Now she says, “You are disturbed by this memory.”
Although trains have occasionally been disrupted, there have been fatal accidents in recent years.
A.D. In 2018, three people were killed when an American train derailed in South Carolina and crashed into a parked truck. That same year, a train carrying Republican members of Congress struck a garbage truck in rural Virginia, killing the occupant.
A.D. In 2015, an American train traveling at more than 100 miles per hour killed two people and injured more than 200 when it struck a speed limit twice on a Philadelphia curve.
Andres R. Martinez contributed to the report.