In Hoboken, New Jersey, at least one person was killed and more than 100 injured, many critically, after a commuter train hurtled through a station and crashed through a wall during the morning rush on Thursday. Witnesses described a horrific scene of bloodied bodies and twisted metal. Eyewitness William Blaine said the crash sounded like a bomb.
William Blaine: “So I ran out. When I looked to the right, I just saw bodies. And I saw debris, iron. And so I looked, and I saw dust in this guy’s hair. He tried to get up. I saw another person bleeding, and so I went to help them out, but a couple other people got to them first to help them. So I looked over, and that’s when I saw the train in the wall. It just blew my mind.”
Officials are still investigating why the New Jersey Transit train failed to brake as it approached the Hoboken terminal, but they’re treating the disaster as an accident. The train did not have Positive Train Control, a technology that can automatically stop a train that is in danger of derailment or a collision. New Jersey Transit was supposed to have implemented the technology by the end of 2015 under a congressional mandate passed in 2008, but was granted a three-year extension after the railroad industry lobbied successfully for a delay.