GLENDALE, California, Jan 26 (AFP) - At least nine people were killed and more than 100 injured in Los Angeles on Wednesday when two passenger trains collided after one of them hit a vehicle on the line, police said.
The death toll is expected to grow as rescuers pick through the mangled wreckage of the two trains, at least one of which caught fire, after they collided in the Los Angeles area of Glendale just after 6:00 am (1400 GMT).
"Preliminarily, the word that we have is that there nine deaths," said Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca at a news conference following the massive morning rush hour pile-up in a heavily-populated suburb.
"The cause is someone on the rail in a private vehicle," said the sheriff angrily as hundreds of emergency personnel battled to free trapped passengers and transport the injured to hospital.
"You don`t put your car on the track and put yourself in harm`s way and all these passengers in harm`s way," he said of the cause of the carnage. "This is a complete outrage."
More than 100 people were rushed to hospital as a hundreds of rescuers and convoys of ambulances flooded the area of the crash in the Atwater Village area.
Some 200 people, mostly walking wounded, were examined by medical staff at the scene as they prioritised treatment for the wounded, firefighters said.
Glendale Police Chief Randy Adams said that three trains, including a parked freight train, crashed after a passenger train headed north out of Los Angeles` Union Station struck a Jeep-type vehicle on the line and jumped the tracks.
As it did so, its tail flew into the path of an oncoming commuter train, striking it with what local residents said was a deafening impact of metal.
One of the stricken passenger trains then sideswiped a stationary Union Pacific freight train, knocking it off the tracks on which it had been parked.
"It sounded like thunder," said Karen Mendoza, an employee at a nearby wholesale store who called emergency services when she heard the accident.
Passengers were tossed around the inside of their trains and some had to jump from the upper decks of the burning wreckage, eyewitnesses told reporters.
Most of the injuries suffered by victims were "crush-type" wounds similar to those that occur in car crashes, said Carol Meyer of the Los Angeles County emergency medical services.
Many of the patients had head, chest and abdominal injuries, she added.
The Los Angeles Police Department declared a citywide tactical alert that allows commanders to keep officers on the job beyond the end of their shifts, in order to help with the rescue and crowd control operations.
The driver of the truck that was apparently parked on the lines could face serious criminal charges, said Sheriff Baca, one of whose deputies was among the dead.
01/26/2005 17:45 GMT - AFP