90 Reported Injured in US Train Derailment

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, July 30, 2002

90 Reported Injured in US Train Derailment

A double-decker US Amtrak train derailed Monday just outside Washington, injuring 90 people, 30 of them seriously, authorities said.

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A double-decker US Amtrak train derailed Monday just outside Washington, injuring 90 people, 30 of them seriously, authorities said.

The train, heading to Washington from Chicago, derailed at about 1:55 p.m. Eastern Time in the Kensington area of Montgomery County, Maryland, about 10 miles (about 16 kilometers) away from the destination.

Fire officials in Montgomery County said there were no known fatalities. They said there were 161 passengers and 12 crew members aboard the train, and the injured were sent to local hospitals for treatment.

The train consisted of two locomotives, eight occupied cars and four unoccupied cars, according to Robert Allwang, operations chief for the Montgomery County fire and rescue services.

Witnesses said four double-decker cars overturned in a residential area.

"The accident happened without warning. We felt a jolt," said Paula Kolokowski, a passenger who was traveling with her 13-year-old daughter in a sleeping car when the accident happened. They both escaped unharmed.

The derailment happened after the train passed a curve. The cause of crash was not known. The National Transportation Safety Board has sent a team to the site for investigation.

An expert said they would probably try to determine whether the heat had caused the track to buckle. Temperatures were in the mid-90s (around 35 degrees centigrade) as the accident happened.

However, a spokesman of freight railroad CSX Corp that operates and maintains the track, said the section of track where the derailment happened was last inspected visually on Sunday.

CSX spokesman Dan Murphy said a freight passed through the section about 45 minutes earlier and reported nothing unusual.

In 1996, an Amtrak train and a commuter train collided in nearby Silver Spring, killing 11 people and injuring more than 20.

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