Excerpt
SUMMARY: A rush hour commuter rail train smashed into a station in Hoboken on Thursday, killing one and injuring more than one hundred. Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Brenda Flanagan of NJTV News about the factors that may have led to the accident and upcoming investigations into transit security and safety.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Investigators in Northern New Jersey have a big question to ponder tonight: Why did a commuter train smash into a station in the midst of rush hour?
For now, the answer is anything but clear.
It was 8:45 this morning, when a New Jersey transit train came barreling into Hoboken without slowing down. A passenger in the first car said there'd been no hint of anything wrong.
JAMIE WEATHERHEAD-SAUL, Rain Passenger: There wasn't even a screeching, like it was halting. It just kept going. Maybe there was some kind of, like, braking involved, because the lights went off and people started screaming.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The speeding railcars crashed through a barrier and into the outer wall of the terminal waiting room, crushing the front of the train and collapsing part of the ceiling.
POLICE SCANNER AUDIO: We have a train that's into the train station at Hoboken terminal. We are going to need multiple EMS for multiple injuries.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Police and emergency workers rushed to the station, a commuter hub just outside New York that handles 50,000 passengers every day. Bystanders jumped in to help people pinned under mangled steel and concrete.
MIKE LARSON, New Jersey Transit Employee: The second half of the first car was completely destroyed, to where they were crawling on their hands and knees. And we were trying to get as many people out. I assisted in maybe three or four people getting out.
HARI SREENIVASAN: The lone fatality was a woman on the platform killed by the falling debris.
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