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One dead, at least 100 injured in New Jersey train crash

At least one person is dead and dozens are injured after a packed commuter train ploughed into a New Jersey railway station during the Thursday morning rush hour.

Police told New York television station WCBS more than 100 people were injured in the crash, many of them critically.

Witnesses reported injuries, including one woman who was trapped under concrete and many people bleeding.

TV footage and photos from the scene on Thursday morning show damage to the rail car and extensive structural damage to the Hoboken station.

“The next thing I know, we are plowing through the platform,” passenger Bhagyesh Shah told NBC New York. “It was for a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity.”

He said the train was crowded, particularly the first two cars, because they make for an easy exit into the Hoboken station and onto the PATH train. Passengers in the second car broke the emergency windows to get out.

“I saw a woman pinned under concrete,” Shah told NBC New York. “A lot of people were bleeding; one guy was crying.”

A New Jersey Transit spokeswoman said it wasn’t clear how many people were injured.

The crash sparked a massive response from emergency services.

Images on social media show a train that appears to have gone through the bumper stop at the end of a track.

The train came to a halt in a covered area between the station’s indoor waiting area and the platform.

A metal structure covering the area collapsed.

“It simply did not stop,” WFAN anchor John Minko, who witnessed the crash, told 1010 WINS radio.

“It went right through the barriers and into the reception area.”

https://twitter.com/rustysombrero/status/781479743388524544

Rail service was suspended in and out of Hoboken, which is directly across the Hudson River from New York City.

The station is a hub for commuters switching from the NJ Transit system to the PATH system to head into Manhattan.

Hoboken, which is New Jersey Transit’s fifth-busiest stations with 15,000 boardings per weekday, is the final stop for several train lines and a transfer point for many commuters on their way to New York City. It is situated just across the Hudson River from it.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending investigators.

New Jersey Transit hasn’t completed installing positive train control, a safety system designed to prevent accidents by automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast.

None of its trains or tracks is fully equipped with the system yet.

The industry is under government orders to install PTC, but the work has gone more slowly than expected, and the deadline has been repeatedly extended by regulators at the request of the railways.

– With agencies

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