“Today’s tragic incident in Pierce County is a serious and ongoing emergency,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wrote in a statement. “Trudi and I are holding in our hearts everyone on board, and are praying for the many injured. They are our top priority, and I know first responders are doing everything to ensure everyone has the care they need.”
All southbound lanes of traffic are blocked on Interstate 5. The Washington State Department of Transportation tweeted a photo of the derailment in an effort to urge motorists to avoid the area.
The train is able to carry up to 250 people, but Amtrak said there were approximately 78 passengers and five crew members on board at the time of the accident. The new Cascades service from Seattle to Portland was supposed to be rated for a maximum speed of 79 mph for the section where it derailed in DuPont, but it’s unclear if the tracks were upgraded to handle the increased speed.
“We had just passed the city of DuPont and it seemed like we were going around a curve,” passenger Chris Karnes said. “And all of a sudden, we felt this rocking and creaking noise, and then all of a sudden it felt like we were heading down a hill, and the next thing that we know, we’re being slammed into the front of our seats, and the windows are breaking, and then we stop, and there’s water that’s gushing out of the top of the train and all the lights go out and people are screaming.”
“The tracks for this line were supposed to be upgraded to be able to handle higher speeds,” he added. “So, I’m not sure what happened at this juncture.” CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave reports the train tracks themselves are not owned by Amtrak; they’re maintained by a freight railroad.
At least seven cars derailed from the tracks, according to Karnes, who was on board when the train derailed. Passengers were forced to kick out train windows to exit since the emergency doors were not functioning correctly.
The derailment was not only horrifying for the passengers, it was also frightening for the motorists below like Greg Mukai, who witnessed the incident from the highway and described it as “really scary stuff.”
“We suddenly had to go from our 60 mph down to zero as fast as possible,” he said. “We were all avoiding one another to try and avoid a collision there. We saw smoke and the passenger train hanging from the overpass and on the freeway.”
A photo going around social media taken by a Washington state trooper showed one car of the train smashed upside down on the highway and another hanging off the bridge above it.
Though there is speculation about the train tracks with the increased speed of the new train, it’s unclear what caused the derailment and it remains under investigation. An NTSB team will be sent from Washington, D.C., to investigate the incident.
Article Appeared @http://www.vladtv.com/article/237937/amtrak-train-derails-in-tacoma-at-least-6-fatalities-and-multiple