3 killed, 50 injured in US train derailment

Washington, June 28

At least three people were killed and 50 others injured following a passenger train derailment in the US state of Missouri, authorities said.

On Monday, the Amtrak train, with 243 passengers and 12 crew members on board, hit a dump truck that was obstructing a public crossing near Mendon, Missouri, when it was travelling eastbound from Los Angeles to Chicago, Xinhua news agency quoted the Washington, D.C.-headquartered passenger railroad service company as saying in a statement.

Mendon is about 160 km northeast of Kansas City.

Eight cars and two locomotives were derailed, according to the statement.

Local authorities were assisting the passengers and an Amtrak incident response team had been activated, the company said.

"We are deploying emergency personnel to the scene to help support our passengers, our employees and their families with their needs," the statement added.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson tweeted they were "saddened to hear of the Amtrak train derailment in Chariton County this afternoon."

Emergency management personnel were responding, wrote Parson, while asking "Missourians to join us in praying for all those impacted".

According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, of the three victims, two were on board the train and the third was in the dump truck.

On Monday evening, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced that a 14-member investigation team is travelling to the accident site and is expected to arrive on Tuesday

The derailment in Missouri occurred just a day after an Amtrak train collided with a car in Brentwood, California, killing three people and injuring two others.

Amtrak provides medium and long-distance inter-city rail service in the contiguous US and to nine cities in Canada.

In the last decade, Amtrak has averaged 24 derailments annually, according to data reported to the Federal Railroad Administration, an agency under the Department of Transportation.