Rush-hour subway crash kills at least 4

Published on Tuesday 23 June 2009 02:00

AT LEAST four people died and 70 were injured when a subway train derailed and smashed into another train on the outskirts of Washington DC during the afternoon rush-hour yesterday, officials said.

Washington mayor Adrian Fenty called the crash the deadliest in the history of the city's Metro system. The city's fire chief said 70 people had been treated for injuries so far.

The transit authority said one of those killed was a female train operator.

"The incident is under investigation but it appears that the trains were on the same track and the operator who was killed was on the trailing train," the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said.

Several mangled cars of one train lay on top of the other on open-air tracks, and emergency worked propped ladders against train doors to rescue people.

Television footage of the wreckage appears to indicate one of the trains "piggybacked" onto the other.

The images show several mangled carriages of one train lying on top of the other on open-air tracks, partly crushing at least one carriage below.

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, emergency rescue personnel fought to free passengers trapped in carriages, while others carried injured people off the trains on stretchers.

"We are working to first get everyone outside of the train, and everyone who needs medical attention will get it," Metro system general manager John Catoe said. .

Alan Etter, Washington fire spokesman, said crews were cutting apart the trains to get people out. He added that there were severe injuries.

The accident occured between Fort Totten and Takoma stations on the north-eastern outskirts of the city near the border with Maryland.

One witness described how one train appeared to collide with and then run up and over the second train.

"It was very mangled, everything is ripped out of there," the woman told a local TV station.

The accident comes two years after a Metro train derailed near the centre of Washington.