Multiple people were killed and injured this morning, after an Amtrak train derailment spilled several cars off an interstate overpass outside DuPont, Washington, about 50 miles from Seattle.
78 Passengers, 5 Crew Were Aboard Amtrak Train When It Derailed
At least 78 passengers and five crew were traveling from Seattle to Portland when the 501 Amtrak train derailed around 7:40 a.m., completely blocking all southbound lanes of I-5 near Mounts Road in Pierce County.
Maria Hetland told The Seattle Times that she was driving to work in the northbound lanes of the interstate when the heavy rush-hour traffic suddenly slowed.
“As we were coming up the hill I rolled my window down and saw the train,” she said. “It was awful.”
“We came around the corner and it had to have just happened… there were no police there yet. There was one link of the train off to one side and the other on the other side of the freeway,” witness Danae Orlob told CNN. “There were crushed cars underneath. There was an insane amount of fire trucks and ambulances heading towards us.”
Amtrak has temporarily suspended all service south of Seattle.
At Least 3 Dead, Unknown Number Injured
The Pierce County Sheriff’s department is reporting at least three deaths, though that number could grow. An unknown number of passengers were injured.
Several motorists traveling on I-5 were also hurt, after their vehicles were struck by falling train cars.
The injured are being transferred to area hospitals. Madigan Army Medical Center, which is serving as the primary hospital receiving patients, has not released information on the number of injured transferred there or their conditions.
A spokesperson for Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia told the Seattle Times that the facility had received about a dozen patients as of 9:25 a.m. Three are listed in critical condition.
Amtrak Train Was on New Run Established as Part of the Cascades High-Speed Rail Capital Program
Amtrak train 501 was on its inaugural run along a newly-established route when it derailed. According to WSDOT, the route was designed to avoid slow curves and “single track tunnels on the BNSF Railway main line tracks near Point Defiance and along southern Puget Sound.”
The new route, part of an $800 million project called the Cascades High-Speed Rail Capital Program, uses a line that runs along I-5 from south Tacoma through Dupont before reconnecting with the main line.
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