UpdateAmtrak train plunges onto busy highway near Seattle
The train travelling from Vancouver to Oregon was making the first-ever run along a new route when it derailed at 130km/h
An Amtrak train making the first-ever run along a faster new route hurtled off an overpass south of Seattle at an estimated 130km/h on Monday, plunging carriages onto the busy highway below and killing three people, authorities said.
Seventy-seven passengers and five crew members were aboard when the train derailed and pulled 13 cars off the tracks. At least 50 people were hospitalised, more than a dozen with critical or serious injuries, authorities said.
An official briefed on the investigation said preliminary signs indicate that Train 501 may have struck something before going off the track at 7.40am near Dupont, about 65km south of Seattle. The official was not authorised to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said several vehicles on Interstate 5 were struck by falling train cars and multiple motorists were injured. No fatalities of motorists were reported.
In a radio transmission immediately after the accident, the conductor can be heard saying the train was coming around a corner and was crossing a bridge that passed over Interstate 5 when it derailed. Dispatch audio also indicated that the engineer survived with bleeding from the head and both eyes swollen shut.
“I’m still figuring that out. We’ve got cars everywhere and down onto the highway,” he tells the dispatcher, who asks if everyone is OK.
Aleksander Kristiansen, a 24-year-old exchange student at the University of Washington from Copenhagen, was going to Portland to visit the city for the day.