Continue reading »]]>

More than a day after a freight train derailed and exploded on the Italian coast, officials raised the death toll to 17, including two small children and an unidentified man who subsequently died of severe burns, news agencies reported.

The 14-car train carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed in Viareggio around midnight on Monday, engulfing a neighborhood in flames. More than 34 people injured, 12 of them in serious condition.

The train was traveling south through coastal Tuscany when the axle on the first car broke, officials said. The train ran off the tracks and exploded.

“We saw a ball of fire rising up to the sky,” one witness, Gianfranco Bini, told The Associated Press. Mr. Bini lives in a building overlooking the station. “We heard three big rumbles, like bombs. It looked like war had broken out.”

The flames ravaged entire streets, and five buildings collapsed, killing some residents as they slept.

“It was an apocalypse,” a survivor said on Italian television, according to Reuters. “All we could smell was gas and things burning, and all we could see was flames.”

Three children were pulled alive from the rubble, the Italian news media reported.

More than 1,000 people were evacuated, and about 100 were left homeless, the mayor of Viareggio, Luca Lunardini, told news agencies.

Accusations of poor infrastructure and questions about why dangerous materials were being shipped through residential areas immediately added to the political pressures on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He was met with boos and cries of “go home” when he arrived in Viareggio on Tuesday afternoon.

At a news conference, Mr. Berlusconi said that the government would soon call a state of emergency, and that it would also “guarantee the reconstruction of 100 percent of the houses destroyed,” Italy’s ANSA news agency reported.

The accident comes a week before the country is expected to host world leaders for the Group of 8 summit meeting, to be held in another disaster zone, L’Aquila. An earthquake there on April 6 killed nearly 300 people and left 65,000 homeless.

Guido Bertolaso, Italy’s senior civil protection official, called the episode one of the “worst tragedies” to occur in the Italian train system, ANSA reported. In 2005, 17 people died in a collision between a passenger and freight train.

Raffaele Gargiulo, a police spokesman for the nearby city of Lucca, told The A.P. that the bodies of the dead were so badly burned that identifications would be difficult.

The regional spokesman for a railway union told ANSA that Tuesday’s accident was the fifth train-related accident in Tuscany this month. Several other trains either derailed or went off their tracks, though there were no reported fatalities or injuries.

Railway unions called for a one-hour halt in train traffic for Wednesday, Reuters reported, out of respect for the dead and to draw attention to the need for higher safety standards.

Death Toll Rises to 17 in Italy Train Derailment

Continue reading »]]> LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Friday’s two-train collision killed 25 people and injured more than 130 others near Los Angeles after an engineer failed to heed a traffic signal, a spokeswoman for Metrolink commuter trains said.

The engineer was guiding the Metrolink train that slammed head-on into a freight train and is not believed to have survived, Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said on Saturday.

“It was human error,” Tyrrell said, adding this was Metrolink’s belief “barring any new information” from an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

NTSB spokeswoman Kitty Higgins said the agency would “look at everything before we rule anything in or out.”

Tyrrell said the engineer, whom she didn’t identify, was a subcontractor employed by another company. She said she did not have details of his record.

The crash occurred about 4:30 p.m. PT Friday in Chatsworth, a northwest Los Angeles suburb. The Metrolink train had about 220 passengers and two crew members on board at the time, according to Tyrrell.

Forty-five of the injured were in critical condition, with 40 flown to hospitals, Tyrrell said. Another 50 had minor injuries, and 40 others were treated at the crash site but transported to hospitals for evaluation.

“It was like running into a brick wall at 60 miles an hour,” an injured passenger told CNN affiliate KABC.

In the minutes after the crash, passers-by joined emergency personnel in an effort to free passengers from the wreckage.

On Saturday afternoon, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the search of the wreckage had finished. Earlier in the day, authorities were picking through the wreckage and freeing trapped bodies.

Ed Winter, assistant chief of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, told reporters two bodies — both of females — had yet to be identified. If the females had carried identification, it probably was lost in the crash, he said.

As of 9 a.m. PT Saturday, authorities had been able to notify relatives of eight victims, he said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited the crash site on Saturday, telling reporters it was “one of the worst train accidents in modern history in California.”

The NTSB will make a final determination of the crash’s cause. Higgins, the agency’s spokeswoman, said data recorders have been recovered from both trains, along with a video recorder from the freight train.

Higgins said that out of the trains’ five crew members, four survived. Authorities will interview the surviving crew members, Higgins said.

Tyrrell said a review of “a number of programs,” including the signal system, showed the commuter train’s engineer failed to heed a stop signal, Tyrrell said.

“We don’t know how the error happened, but this is what we believe happened,” Tyrrell said.

The wreck occurred on a curved part of the track where the speed limit is 40 mph, Tyrrell said.

She said that just like road vehicles, trains are subject to signal systems. At the wreck site is a siding where one train can wait while another passes, she said.

“They receive a signal to stop and they must hold their location until other traffic has passed,” she said.

Villaraigosa praised police officers and firefighters for working under emotionally draining conditions and treating the victims with respect.

“This has been a grueling night for them,” he said.

The crash sparked a fire that impeded firefighters’s efforts to reach the front commuter car, where most of the injuries occurred, Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

The fire eventually was brought under control.

“We’ve already found survivors trapped under fatalities,” Whitmore said late Friday.

Among those killed was Spree Desha, 35, a Los Angeles police officer on her way home from work, officials said Saturday.

“It’s not unusual for us to respond to disasters,” said Jerry Szymanski, an assistant commander for the LAPD. “When we got here, we found it was one that hit close to home.”

Desha had “mentored and trained a lot of the young officers in the North Hollywood area,” Szymanski said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said Friday night a sheriff’s deputy was in a hospital’s intensive care unit after collapsing while conducting rescue work.

Continue reading »]]> A Metrolink commuter train believed to be carrying up to 350 people collided with a freight train Friday, killing two people and injuring an unknown number of others.

Firefighters put out a fire under part of the wreckage and pulled people from a Metrolink car, which was partly torn open and left lying on its side. Several other cars in the Metrolink train remained upright.

The freight train’s engine was also turned onto its side, with the rest of the train splayed out like an accordion behind it.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Byron Ward said two people were confirmed dead.

Authorities had no immediate injury count, but county fire Inspector Ron Haralson said he was certain they were numerous.

He said the trains collided at 4:32 p.m. in the Chatsworth area of the San Fernando Valley.

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said the train left Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and was headed northwest to Moorpark in Ventura County. She couldn’t confirm how many people were on the train, but said that in rush hours there would usually be about 350 people on board.

“We don’t know if we hit another train or another train hit us,” Tyrrell said.

She said the Metrolink train was being pulled by its locomotive rather than being pushed. The push mode is controversial due to claims that it makes trains more vulnerable in accidents.

Firefighters pulled passengers out a rear door and down a ladder from the toppled commuter car, which had been separated from the rest of the train by several feet. Crumpled and charred freight cars were strewn across the tracks. Dazed and injured passengers sat on the ground and milled about on both sides of the tracks.

The crash happened in an area where the tracks form a “U” shape, about 2,500 feet wide. At the top of the bend is a 500-foot long tunnel that runs beneath Stoney Point Park, popular with climbers for its large boulders.

The worst disaster in Metrolink’s history occurred on Jan. 26, 2005, in suburban Glendale, when a man parked a gasoline-soaked SUV on railroad tracks. A Metrolink train struck the SUV and derailed, striking another Metrolink train traveling the other way, killing 11 people and injuring about 180 others. Juan Alvarez was convicted this year of murder for causing the crash.

Continue reading »]]> LOS ANGELES —  A Metrolink commuter train believed to be carrying up to 350 people collided with a freight train Friday, killing four people and injuring dozens of others.

Firefighters put out a fire under part of the wreckage and pulled people from a devastated Metrolink passenger car which was left lying on its side with the Metrolink engine shoved back inside it. Two other cars in the Metrolink train remained upright. Firefighters worked to free victims nearly two hours after the wreck.

The engine of the Union Pacific freight was left on its side, with the rest of its train accordioned behind it.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said four people were confirmed dead and 30 to 40 people were injured.

Firefighters treated the injured at three triage areas near the wreck, and helicopters flew in and out of a nearby landing area on medical evacuation flights.

One of the largest medical facilities in the area, Northridge Hospital Medical Center, was told to prepare for the arrival of injured passengers, said hospital spokeswoman Christina Zicklin.