At least three people died when an Amtrak passenger train collided with a garbage truck in Missouri, derailing the locomotive and several cars, authorities in the central US state said.
"There are multiple injuries and we can confirm that we have three fatalities, two on the train and one on the dump truck," Justin Dunn, spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol, clarified during a press conference.
The train, running from Los Angeles, California, to Chicago, Illinois, "derailed when it collided with a garbage truck on a level crossing" in Menton, northern Missouri, at 1:42 p.m. (local time; 9:42 p.m. EDT) yesterday, Monday, Amtrak said in a press release.
More than 240 passengers and 12 railroad employees were aboard the train. There was no traffic light at the level crossing and no automatic traffic control devices were installed, according to local authorities.
The investigation into the cause of the accident is still "at the preliminary investigation stage," Mr. Dunn explained, promising that more information would be made public.
Striking images - video and photos - posted by passengers on social media sites depict many of the carriages overturned and lying on their sides next to the tracks, or passengers emerging from train windows against a backdrop of rural countryside. Agence France-Presse notes that it has not been able to verify their authenticity. At least one of the videos was broadcast by the CNN television network.
The day before Sunday, another Amtrak train collided with a vehicle at a level crossing without automatic barriers in California, killing three occupants in the car, the NBC News television network noted.
Source: Cyprus Times
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