Dramatic videos capture passengers escaping from a crowded Amtrak train that hit a dump truck and derailed in Missouri.
“Damn, it happened,” passenger Robert Nightingale of New Mexico can be heard saying, as he walks through the rubble-strewn hallway of the train toward a shaft of light from an open window.
Later, video from Mr Nightingale, which he posted on Facebook Live, shows passengers sitting on top of overturned rail cars.
The Taos resident said he was taking a nap in the train’s sleeper car when suddenly the train began rocking on Monday afternoon.
“I heard — I don’t know what I heard — then everything started to go in slow motion. I could feel the tracks go back and forth back and forth,” he told CNN. “Then it started to tumble on my side of the room. I felt the ground coming, and I was afraid the windows were going to smash, so I shimmied myself up against the exit to the roon. Then we slid, and came to a stop, and then it was silent for a while.”
At least 50 people were injured in the derailment, and at least three were killed, according to local officials.
The crash occured at a public train crossed near the rural Mendon, Missouri, 100 miles northeast of Kansas City.
First responders from several counties have converged on the crash site, as have state highway patrol troopers.
At least three people in unknown condition were taken to University Hospital in Columbia, according to hospital officials.
A snapped truck axle was pictured close to the scene by passengers.
The derailment occured with roughly 243 people onboard, according to Amtrak, on a train from Los Angeles to Chicago.
It’s the second derailment in two days, after an Amtrak train in rural California hit a vehicle, killing three people and injuring two more.
Passengers were taken to a local high school in Mendon to recuperate.
“It was surreal,” Jason Drinkard who boarded the train in Kansas City, told KSHB. “You see movies that have it and there’s no way to accurately describe it ... My mind was saying I can’t believe this is actually happening. Everything else was just slow motion. It’s dust filled in the car.”
Missouri governor Mike Parson said he was "saddened to hear of the Amtrak derailment in Chariton County this afternoon” in a statement and called on residents to pray for the victims of the crash.
