At least 30 injured after collision of train and truck in Japan's Yokohama

TOKYO - An express train and a truck collided in Japan's second-largest city of Yokohama on Thursday, train operator Keikyu Corp said, with fire officials confirming that about 30 people were injured.

The collision on a key rail link to Tokyo, the capital, smashed the glass in the driver's compartment and derailed at least the first 3 carriages of the 8-carriage train, video images showed, as rescuers surrounded the site.

"The sound of glass breaking was incredible," one passenger told national broadcaster NHK. "By the time I knew what had happened, the carriage was all smashed up."

The truck driver was severely hurt, but the injuries to the passengers and driver of the train did not immediately appear to be serious, NHK added.

Earlier, black smoke billowed from parts of the derailed train and the truck, which was crushed between the train and a wall, while smashed boxes and what appeared to be oranges littered the tracks.

Authorities, including the transport ministry, said they were investigating the cause but were unable to provide further details. Police confirmed a collision between a vehicle and the train, but could not elaborate, citing further investigations.

Images of people evacuating the train, a twisted electrical pole and train seats covered with broken glass figured in video posted on social media by shaken passengers. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Hong Kong protesters disrupt train services, cause commuter chaos

HONG KONG - Hundreds of Hong Kong protesters blocked train services during the early morning rush hour on Tuesday, causing commuter chaos in the latest anti-government campaign to roil the former British colony.

What started 3 months ago as rallies against an extradition bill that would have allowed people in Hong Kong to be sent to mainland China for trial, has now morphed into a wider backlash against the city's government and its political masters in Beijing.

Protests have occurred almost daily, sometimes with little notice, disrupting business, piling pressure on Hong Kong's beleaguered government and stretching the city's police force, which some have accused of using excessive force.

Activists blocked train doors, playing havoc with services and forcing hundreds of people to stream out of railway stations in search of alternative transport.

"We don't know how long we are going to stay here, we don't have a leader, as you can see this is a mass movement now," said Sharon, a 21-year-old masked protester who declined to give her full name. "It's not our intention to inconvenience people, but we have to make the authorities understand why we protest. We will continue with this as long as need."

Others chanted, "Liberate Hong Kong," and "Revolution of our Time".

By mid-morning commuters were crammed into stations across the city, waiting to board trains that were badly delayed, with no service on some lines.

Rail operator MTR Corp urged people to seek other forms of transport.

Hong Kong, which returned to China in 1997, is embroiled in its worst political crisis for decades after 2 months of increasingly violent protests that have posed one of the gravest populist challenges to Communist Party rulers in Beijing.

China on Monday reiterated its support for Hong Kong's embattled leader, Carrie Lam, and its police and urged Hong Kong people to oppose violence.

The latest protest follows a demonstration at the Chinese-ruled city's international airport on Friday and violent protests at the weekend when activists clashed with police who fired rubber bullets, tear gas and sponge grenades - a crowd-control weapon.

Some scuffles broke out between commuters and protesters, who gradually began to disperse, while more police were deployed in train stations, where they stopped protesters to search their bags.

Commuters grew increasingly frustrated over the travel disruption, and shops, including bakeries and convenience stores, had also begun to close.

"It's so inconvenient and annoying, really. I am in hurry to work, to make a living. Will you give away your salary to me?" said a 64-year-old man surnamed Liu.

Others were more supportive, refusing to blame the protesters.

"This non cooperation movement is caused by Carrie Lam. She doesn't cooperate with the people of Hong Kong or respond to their demands," Jason Lo, 31, told Reuters as he waited for a train.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Train derails in US, spilling vegetable oil, closing major highway

NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES—A Union Pacific freight train derailed in Nevada, US on Wednesday, spilling vegetable oil and prompting the closure of an interstate highway.

The vegetable oil spilled out of 1 of the 22 derailed cars after the train went off the tracks shortly before 11 a.m. local time, the Elko County Sheriff's Office said on Facebook, citing Union Pacific Railroad officials.

"We had some vegetable oil and some diesel spill. There was nothing hazardous that was released or in the derailed cars," Union Pacific spokeswoman Kristen South said.

South said ammunition was being carried on the train but was not in the cars that derailed. She said there were no injuries in the derailment and that the cause was under investigation.

The derailment near Wells, Nevada, about 180 miles (290 km) west of Salt Lake City, Utah, prompted authorities to shut down Interstate-80 in both directions, the Nevada Department of Transportation said on Twitter.

A photo of the scene showed smoke rising from a jumble of rail cars.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Train runs over crowd in India; 50 feared dead

AMRITSAR/NEW DELHI - A commuter train travelling at high speed struck a crowd of people seated on tracks in northern India on Friday and at least 50 were feared killed, Punjab state police and witnesses said.

"The people were sitting on and near the tracks on the outskirts of Amritsar watching the burning of effigies as part of the Dussehra festival when a commuter train ran over them," a police officer told Reuters.

At least 60 people were admitted to hospital with injuries, the police officer in the control room said, after what he called a "freak accident" given that people did not hear the train approaching amid the din of festivities and fireworks.

Reuters partner ANI news agency reported that an eyewitness at the scene said the train that ran over people was travelling at a high speed.

Amarinder Singh, Punjab chief minister, said he was rushing to Amritsar to supervise relief and rescue operations. "District authorities have been mobilized on war footing," Singh tweeted.

Local television stations showed images of angry and distraught locals including a weeping mother who had just lost a child in the tragedy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was extremely saddened by the train accident.

"The tragedy is heart-wrenching," he tweeted. "My deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones and I pray that the injured recover quickly. Have asked officials to provide immediate assistance that is required."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Panama studies building train to Costa Rica with China

LIMA - Panama is considering building a passenger train to Costa Rica with China, a project that would require an initial investment of $5 billion, Panama's President told Reuters in an interview, a sign of the Asian country's growing interest in Latin America.

President Juan Carlos Varela said Panama is promoting infrastructure investment in general and will also auction off a third metro line, with an expected $4 billion investment requirement.


China has become more involved in Latin America as the United States, under President Donald Trump, has taken a more protectionist stance on trade.

"We are doing with China a feasibility study of a 450-kilometer train between Panama and the border of Costa Rica," Varela said on the sidelines of the Americas Summit in Lima on Friday evening.

Varela also said he expected a $6 billion copper mine under construction by Australia's First Quantum Minerals to start producing next year, adding 2.5 percent to Panama's gross domestic product.

In reference to the US-China trade dispute, Varela said if any country wanted to renegotiate trade agreements, it should do so without generating conflict. Panama welcomed investment from all countries, he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Amtrak safety record under scrutiny before fatal derailment

The deadly derailment of an Amtrak train south of Seattle is likely to intensify scrutiny of the national passenger railroad company's safety record, which was already under the microscope following a series of fatal incidents.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said late on Monday the train was traveling at 80 miles (130 km) per hour in a 30-mph (48 kph) zone when it jumped the tracks that morning.

The NTSB said it was too soon to say whether excessive speed contributed to the crash, which killed at least three people. Another 100 were taken to hospitals, 10 with serious injuries, officials said.

Amtrak's co-chief executive, Richard Anderson, told reporters earlier on Monday he would not speculate on the cause of the derailment and said safety was the company's top priority.

However, Anderson acknowledged that a working Positive Train Control (PTC), a system that automatically slows trains if they are going too fast, had not been installed on that stretch of track. PTC also prevents train-on-train collisions and stops a train from passing through misaligned tracks.

Moreover, NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt just last month issued a scathing critique of Amtrak's culture, saying a future breakdown was likely.

"Amtrak's safety culture is failing and is primed to fail again, until and unless Amtrak changes the way it practices safety management," Sumwalt said on Nov. 14.

Congress had mandated the implementation of PTC nationwide by the end of 2015, then extended that deadline until the end of 2018 after finding installation was harder than anticipated.

"Every year we wait in implementing PTC to its full extent, more people are going to be killed," Bella Dinh-Zarr, an NTSB member helping oversee the derailment investigation, told CNN on Tuesday.

In 2015, the NTSB calculated PTC would have prevented 145 train accidents, saved 300 lives and avoided 6,700 injuries had it been in place since 1969.

Investigators have said speeding was to blame, at least in part, for a number of recent crashes, including one in 2015 in Philadelphia that killed eight people.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said on Tuesday that PTC was "needed now."

"Why was Amtrak train traveling at nearly TRIPLE the speed limit before fatal derailment?" Blumenthal asked in a Twitter post. "Positive Train Control might have prevented this disaster and saved lives."

Less than half Amtrak's 459 locomotives had PTC as of the second quarter of 2017, the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

Two-thirds of Amtrak's track segments and route miles had PTC in operation.

In Germany, Britain and France there has been some form of automatic train control since the 1930s, the FRA said. Japan has run its bullet trains since 1964 with zero passenger fatalities.

Amtrak did not respond to a Reuters query on whether the locomotive in Monday's crash had PTC. But even if it did, the tracks at the accident site, owned by the Transit Sound commuter rail, did not. To be effective, PTC must be operating both in the engine and on the tracks, with radio towers installed and staff trained in its use.

Keith Millhouse, a former chairman of the board of directors for Southern California's Metrolink commuter rail system, said the NTSB's previous criticism suggested Amtrak might be "distracted" from its safety mission.

He also questioned why Amtrak had yet to install PTC nationwide. Even though it has another year to complete the measures, the project was mandated by the U.S. Congress nine years ago.

"Amtrak is supposed to be the national rail," Millhouse said. "Why aren't they taking the lead?"

Other railroad advocates are more forgiving, pointing to the difficulties of installing new technology on largely 20th-century infrastructure, as well as chronic underfunding.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Monday the accident showed why his soon-to-be submitted infrastructure plan must be approved quickly.

Earlier this year the Trump administration proposed ending subsidies for Amtrak to operate long-distance train service, cutting $630 million of the $1.4 billion in annual government support for passenger rail service. Those cuts were rejected by Congress.

"There is a money issue because while Congress mandated the implementation of PTC on the railroads, they didn't give any money for it, so it is self-funded," said Allan Zarembski, director of the Railroad Engineering and Safety Program at the University of Delaware. He added the caveat that U.S. funding for Amtrak covers its capital programs.

"For commuter agencies, it falls on the local governments to fund them," he said.

Sound Transit spokesman Geoff Patrick said PTC equipment had been installed where the crash happened, but that the system was not yet operational or certified for use. Full implementation on that segment was expected by the second quarter of 2018, he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

16 people killed in Russia after train collides with bus

MOSCOW - Sixteen people were killed on Friday when a train slammed into a bus that had broken down at a level crossing near Moscow, Russia's investigative committee said in a statement.

The bus, which was carrying migrant workers from Uzbekistan, was shunted several hundred meters down the track, Russia's Rossiya 24 TV channel reported. Footage showed fragments of what was left of the bus strewn across the track. The train itself appeared to have sustained no visible damage.


"The bus stalled on the track," Vladimir Myagkov, a spokesman for Russian Railways, told Rossiya 24 at the crash site.

"Some people say the passengers tried to push the bus off the track. At that moment the train approached and a collision occurred," he said.

Though carrying workers from the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, the bus had a license plate registered in Kazakhstan, Russian news agencies reported.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

New York rail operator bolsters security after London bombing

NEW YORK - The bombing of a packed London commuter train on Friday prompted officials to beef up security on New York City's subway system, major commuter rail networks, at airports and other locations.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates mass-transit lines in New York City and the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North commuter lines, said it was closely monitoring the investigation of the fiery blast that injured 29 people in a West London underground station.

The MTA will expand bag screening and deploy extra police patrols on the LIRR and Metro-North, as well as in midtown Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal and Pennsylvania Station, "out of an abundance of caution," spokesman Kevin Ortiz said.

MTA officials were also consulting with New York City police about bolstering security in the subway system, he said.

New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement he had also directed authorities to increase security at airports, bridges, tunnels and other sensitive locations across the state.

"On behalf of all New Yorkers, I condemn the apparent terrorist attack in London today in the strongest possible terms," Cuomo added.

The NYPD said it has been in contact with London law enforcement officials and has added officers, some heavily armed, and bomb-sniffing dogs to the city's transit system.

Across the country, Los Angeles police said in a statement they had beefed up their presence on subway, commuter train and bus lines in response to the attack in London.

Amtrak, the country's nationwide passenger rail carrier, said it was closely following the events in London but was not adding to the layers of security it already has in place.

"Robust security measures are in place at stations, on trains and along the tracks, and partnerships with federal agencies to gather intelligence information are underway," Amtrak said in a statement.

source: news.abs-cbn.com
 

New York train crash kills four

NEW YORK - A train hurtled off the tracks in a New York suburb Sunday, killing at least four people, injuring 67 and coming perilously close to plunging into a freezing river.

Emergency services launched a major rescue operation after the train careered off the rails in the Bronx as it headed south to Grand Central Station in Manhattan.

New York Fire Department said four people died, while 11 others were seriously hurt and another 56 suffered minor wounds. Some passengers were "impaled" by debris as train cars flew into the air, officials said, while others had to be cut free from tangled metal.

Many survivors had broken limbs or injuries to their heads or necks, with some being led away with bloodied faces, applying ice packs to try and ease the pain.

The cause of the accident is still unknown, but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told broadcaster MSNBC that "the track looked fine," and investigators were more focused on "the operation of the vehicle and the speed of the train."

Cuomo said a "black box," with information recorded about the train in the moments before the crash would help determine what happened.

"That will say how fast the train was traveling and whether or not the brakes were applied," he explained.

At least one passenger said the train was going faster than normal as it moved along a curve on a downward slope leading into Spuyten Duyvil station, just north of Manhattan.

Before reaching the station, the derailed cars flew across a grassy bank separating the rail line from the Hudson and Harlem rivers, which meet at that point.

All seven of the train's cars came off the tracks and the front came to rest only a few feet from the river. Two cars toppled on their side and two others also completely left the track, barely staying on their wheels.

More than 130 firefighters who rushed to the scene used air cushions to stabilize the cars.

Divers searched the rivers in case passengers were hurled into the frigid water by the force of the derailment. Three of the dead were thrown from the train, police said.

Sniffer dogs remained at the wreckage hours later, making sure no casualties had been missed.

Philip Banks, a top New York police official, told reporters more than 100 people were believed to have been on the train, which had left the town of Poughkeepsie at 6:00 am (1100 GMT). The accident happened some 80 minutes later.

A freight train derailed on a nearby stretch of track earlier this year.

Passenger Frank Tatulli, who escaped with injuries to his head and neck, told WABC TV that the commuter train was going "a lot faster" than normal as it went into the bend.

Other travelers gave similar accounts. The unnamed train driver survived the crash, police said, and was being treated in hospital. He was to be questioned by accident investigators later Sunday.

The curved section of track leading into Spuyten Duyvil is a slow speed area. Thomas Prendergast, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority which runs the regional rail and bus network, said speed would be probed.

The rail network "has had a number of accidents in the last nine months, and so we are very concerned about seeing another one," National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Deborah Hersman told CBS television.

The NTSB said in a statement that its investigation team would include specialists in track, signals, mechanical systems, operations and human performance. A press briefing about the probe is expected later Sunday, though no time was announced.

Sunday marks the end of America's Thanksgiving holiday weekend and a surge of travelers was expected.

The White House said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the accident. Cuomo told reporters at the scene the deaths had cast a shadow over Thanksgiving.

"Let's all say a prayer and remember those people who we lost this morning and their families."

Train services in the region were suspended because of the derailment.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

60 hurt as two trains collide head-on in Amsterdam

THE HAGUE - Two trains collided head-on just outside Amsterdam on Saturday, injuring at least 60 people, up to 20 of them seriously, Dutch transport police said. "There are 60 people injured -- some 15 to 20 badly," police spokesman Ed Kraszewski told AFP, after the crash near Sloterdijk in the western suburbs of Amsterdam, but he added "I can't give exact figures."

A spokeswoman for the Dutch capital's fire service put the number of seriously injured at 56, adding "tens of others were slightly wounded."

The accident happened at around 6.30 pm (1630 GMT) when a local train leaving Amsterdam hit a high-speed train, Dutch rail network Prorail spokeswoman Babet Verstappen told AFP. But both trains were travelling relatively slowly at the time, Dutch NOS television reported: each moving at around 50 kilometres-an-hour (30 miles-an-hour).

One had just left Amsterdam central station; the other Amsterdam Sloterdijk. Witnesses quoted by the Dutch media television said the impact had not been violent.

Emergency personnel treated some of the wounded at the scene, on a bridge between Sloterdijk and Amsterdam Central Station, Verstappen added. The worst injured were taken to hospitals, while less seriously hurt passengers were booked into hotels in the city, she added.

Many of the injured suffered from broken bones and bruising, Dutch news agency ANP reported. It cited witnesses who described how travellers had been thrown about inside the carriages or up against their windows, some of which had shattered.

Witnesses said they heard a long hoot from one of the trains before the crash. Passengers on the social network Twitter said they were "smashed against the trains' frames" or "thrown from their seats", ANP added.

Pictures from the scene showed the crushed front ends of both the trains and smashed windows in some of the carriages. "Some of the injured had to be rescued from inside the train," added Amsterdam fire service spokeswoman Elke van den Hout. By late Saturday evening, all the injured had been rescued from the trains, which remained on the tracks, railway police spokesman Kraszewski said.

The cause of the accident remained unknown, but police have launched an investigation, he added. The crash has shut down rail traffic in the west of the city, including Amsterdam Central station and the service to Schiphol airport, Prorail's Verstappen said.

Bus services were being laid on to try to get passengers to their destinations. The Netherlands' worst train disaster happened on January 8, 1962, when two passenger trains smashed into one another at Harmelen, near the central Dutch city of Utrecht, killing 93 and injuring 52 others.

Earlier this year, a monument was unveiled to mark the 50-year anniversary of the accident which happened in thick fog when a train driver missed a warning signal and the two trains also crashed head-on.

source: interaksyon.com