Death toll rises to 9 in D.C. train crash.
At least six people were killed and at least 75 injured in Washington on Monday when one Metro subway train slammed into another on the outskirts of the city during the afternoon rush hour, emergency officials said.
The District of Columbia Fire Department said nine people were confirmed dead. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin said rescue workers treated 76 people at the scene and sent some of them to hospitals, six with critical injuries. A search for further victims continued into the night.
Metro chief John Catoe said the first train was stopped on the tracks, waiting for another to clear the station ahead, when the trailing train, one of the oldest in the Metro fleet, plowed into it from behind.Officials had no explanation for the accident.
Each train had six cars and was capable of holding as many as 1,200 people. Safety board member Debbie Hersman said the trains were bound for downtown. That would mean they were less likely to be filled during the afternoon rush hour.
More than 200 firefighters from D.C., Maryland and Virginia eventually converged on the scene.
One man said he was riding a bicycle across a bridge over the Metro tracks when the sound of the crash got his attention.
"I didn't see any panic," Barry Student said. "The whole situation was so surreal."
Passenger Jodie Wickett, a nurse, told CNN she was seated on one train, sending text messages on her phone, when she felt the impact. She said she sent a message to someone that it felt like the train had hit a bump.
"From that point on, it happened so fast, I flew out of the seat and hit my head." Wickett said she stayed at the scene and tried to help. She said "people are just in very bad shape."
"The people that were hurt, the ones that could speak, were calling back as we called out to them," she said. "Lots of people were upset and crying, but there were no screams."
The Red Line, a U-shaped route that connects Montgomery County's suburbs with central Washington, is the Metro's busiest line. The crash occurred around 5 p.m., among the system's busiest hours, on a surface-level section of track between the Takoma and Fort Totten stations, near a New Hampshire Avenue overpass.
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