NewsNational News

Actions

30 hurt after Amtrak train collides with big rig

Posted at 6:42 PM, Oct 01, 2012
and last updated 2012-10-01 18:43:20-04
By Alan Duke, CNN

(CNN) – About 30 passengers suffered “minor to moderate” injures when an Amtrak passenger train collided with a truck in Hanford, California, Monday afternoon, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

“It was a traffic collision with a big rig and an Amtrak train which collided,” Kings County Assistant Sheriff Dave Putnam said. “The big rig hauling cotton failed to yield.”

There were 11 people with moderate injuries and 19 with minor injuries, according to Kings County EMS Director Dan Lynch. Thirteen ambulances arrived at the scene to take the injured hospitals, Lynch said.

Three of the five train cars left the tracks, he said. The last two cars of the train were at a 45-degree angle to the track, while the third from the end was standing at a 65-degree angle, he said.

“It was a fairly high speed collision which caused the train to derail and stop about a half mile south of the initial hit,” Putnam said.

Emergency workers were working to stop diesel fuel that was spilling from the engine, he said.

Unhurt passengers board school buses for a rode to the town’s civic center Amtrak arranges for their transportation, he said.

Hanford is about 200 miles north of Los Angeles.

CNN’s Amanda Watts contributed to this report.