NEW YORK--A New York City train derailed at a downtown Brooklyn terminal during Wednesday's morning rush hour, injuring more than 100 commuters in the metropolitan area's second major rail accident since late September.
Emergency crews swarmed Atlantic Terminal after the Long Island Rail Road train went off the tracks inside the busy transportation hub at 8:20 a.m. local time, the New York City Fire Department said.
While none of the injuries were life-threatening, at least 11 people were sent to the hospital, Deputy Assistant Chief Dan Donoghue said at a briefing at the crash site.
The train, arriving from the Queens neighbourhood of Far Rockaway, failed to stop on time. Traveling at a fairly slow speed, it derailed after striking a bumping block, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at the briefing.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigator told reporters that about 430 passengers and three crew members were on board the train at the time of the collision and that 104 people were injured.
The front two cars of the six-carriage train were severely damaged. The station's partitions and bumping block, which prevents railway vehicles from going past the end of a section of track, were also damaged.
Passengers said the blood and chaos following the derailment were frightening. "There were people crying," said Aaron Neufeld, a 26-year-old paralegal who commutes on the rail line daily. "I saw some bloody faces."
