Three dead and 50 injured after derailment of Amtrak train in Missouri with 275 on board – live

Here’s what we know at midnight Missouri time.

• At least three people have died and 50 have been injured, including 13 who were taken to hospital.

• The Amtrak train collided with a dump truck crossing the rails, at a location where authorities believe there were no warning lights or electronically controlled gates.

• The train was a Southwest Chief service making a two-day trip from Los Angeles to Chicago and derailed around 1:42 p.m. local time Monday.

• Eight passenger cars and two locomotives derailed, most of them tipping over onto their sides, forcing passengers to exit through doors.

• The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is sending a team to investigate the incident and has requested camera footage and other data from Amtrak, but the cause of the tragedy is unknown.

• One passenger, Dax McDonald, said he remembered seeing two trucks pull into the rails just before the accident, and thought to himself “this guy better slow down.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted Monday to express her sorrow over the horrific Missouri train derailment.

“My heart goes out to everyone affected by today’s horrific train derailment in Missouri,” he said. “While no words can comfort bereaved loved ones lost, may so many Americans pray for them on this tragic day.”

Chuy Garcia, a congressman representing a portion of Chicago, said his thoughts were “with the families of the passengers who lost their lives and those who were injured.”

Missouri Governor Mike Parson said, “We are saddened to learn of the Amtrak train derailment in Chariton County this afternoon. @MoPublicSafety, @MSHP Soldiers and other emergency management personnel are responding. We ask Missourians to join us in praying for all those affected.”

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said trains will be shut off the tracks for “a matter of days” while investigators gather evidence.

She said it was too early to speculate as to why the truck was on the tracks.

dax mcdonaldthe software engineer from Phoenix, Arizona, who survived the derailment, said to Washington Post more details about your experience.

He said he had been traveling from Flagstaff, Arizona to Iowa with his mother and two sisters to join another family for the Fourth of July.

The trio had decided to take a train instead of a plane due to the high cost of fuel. They were in the penultimate carriage when they were all pushed forward with a loud crash.

“The real madness happened a second after that. You could see her starting to lean in… I basically looked to see [my two sisters] running towards me,” she said. Her mother had been in the bathroom and had to climb on the suitcases to escape.

The car was later littered with broken glass and gravel. A woman hit her head and had a seizure, requiring the help of McDonald and others. Then they began to climb through the windows, now looking up.

McDonald also shed some light on the circumstances of the derailment, saying that he saw two trucks through the train windows approaching the rails. This guy should slow down, he thought to her about one of them.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol said in a detailed statement that first responders began arriving at approximately 1:02 p.m.

“Preliminary investigation indicates that an Amtrak passenger train traveling to Chicago, Illinois, collided with a dump truck at the Porch Prairie Avenue railroad crossing,” he said.

“The train had approximately 8 cars, including a baggage car. Seven cars have derailed. There are multiple injuries and we can confirm that there are 3 dead, 2 on the train and 1 on the dump truck.”

“Staff are currently working to secure the scene. The train had approximately 207 passengers and crew. All injured and uninjured occupants of the train have been transported from the scene,” she added.

Jason Drinkard, who was traveling with his students and his wife to Chicago on the train that derailed, tells the independentJosh Marcus that it was chaos as people “were bleeding and bruised.”

“My children were very excited about this,” he said. “As they got closer and closer, you could feel the excitement building. We were talking about what restaurants we were going to go to, what places we were going to see.”

“I looked out the left window and you just see this cloud of brown dust,” he said. “The next thing you know, you feel the car start to roll over. Once it happened, it was one of those, you think, I can’t believe this is actually happening. For me, it was all in slow motion until it stopped.”

ABC News has published video footage shared by a person involved in the accident, showing passengers sitting on top of the fallen train.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to be late for Chicago,” says the person filming the video, apparently out of breath and possibly distraught. “We hit a truck. Someone was crossing the tracks.”

Quinton Lucas, the Mayor of Kansas Cityhas addressed the tragedy on Twitter.

“Having relied on Amtrak to get across our state during my college years and long after, I remember the trip well.

“My heart goes out to the passengers and everyone affected by today’s event, and I extend my thanks to those who responded to today’s derailment at the scene and at the hospital.”

the National Transportation Safety Board The NTSB has said it will send a 16-member “exit team” to investigate the derailment in person, which is expected to arrive at the scene tomorrow.

At a news conference tonight, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, who will be part of the team, said the agency is requesting speed data along the route and records from the onboard recorder and camera footage. of the train.

“With the team, we will have specialists in mechanics, signal systems, operations and survival factors,” he said. “We will have a highway person, a drone operator and some team members from the NTSB Office of Transportation Disaster Assistance to work with the survivors and the families of those who were involved in the derailment.”

The NTSB is a federal agency that investigates transportation accidents and has investigated previous Amtrak derailments in Montana in 2021 and in Washington state in 2019.

Those reports don’t always shed much light. In the 2021 accident, the NTSB completed that the train was equipped with an automatic braking system that was properly engaged, but offered no clues as to what exactly caused the tragedy.

At least 13 of the injured victims have been taken to the hospitalaccording to ABC News.

Hendrick Medical Center in Chillicothe, Missouri, said that it had accepted four patients from the scene, while the University of Missouri Health Care Hospital in Columbia said it was treating nine patients around 4 p.m. local time.