A passenger train has derailed on a curved section of track in the Bronx, New York City, killing four people and injuring 63 as one car came to rest just centimetres from the water.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the deaths at a news conference at the site of the crash near the Spuyten Duyvil station. He said authorities believe everyone at the site has been accounted for and that investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are en route.
Three of the dead were found outside the train, and one was found inside, authorities said. Their families haven’t yet been notified.
Eleven people are believed to be in critical condition, authorities said. The train operator was among the dozens injured, Gov Cuomo said.
President Barack Obama said his thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of the victims. The White House issued a statement saying the president was briefed on the accident on Sunday morning and would to stay in touch with New York officials throughout the day.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said the big curve where the derailment occurred is in a slow speed area. The black box should be able to tell how fast the train was traveling, Ms Anders said.
The derailment of the southbound Hudson Line train was reported at about 7.20am (11.20pm AEDT), authorities said.
Four or five cars on the seven-car train derailed about 90 metres north of the station, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said in a news release. But none of the cars entered the Hudson or Harlem rivers, which are adjacent, the MTA said.
The train appeared to be going “a lot faster” than usual as it approached the curve coming into the station, passenger Frank Tatulli told WABC-TV.
MTA Chairman Thomas F. Prendergast was asked at the news conference if speed was something authorities planned to investigate.
“That’d be one of the factors,” he said, adding that the focus right now was on the passengers who were injured.
On May 17, an eastbound train derailed in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was struck by a westbound train. The crash injured 73 passengers, two engineers and a conductor. Eleven days later, track foreman Robert Luden was struck and killed by a train in West Haven, Connecticut.
