Amtrak crash: Eight now confirmed dead in Philadelphia train accident
Mayor now says that all passengers have been accounted for
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Your support makes all the difference.Cadaver dogs were called back on Thursday morning to the wreckage of the Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia and found another body in the smashed carcass of the first passenger car, bringing the death toll to eight in the accident.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said that with the latest grim discovery investigators now think all passengers have been accounted for. Several passengers had been thought to be missing in the hours after the crash.
Amtrak Train 188 was travelling between Washington DC and New York on Tuesday night with some 243 people on board. Just after it stopped in Philadelphia, the train derailed in a curve. In addition to the eight people who died, more than 200 were injured.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been investigating the crash and determined that the train was travelling at 106 mph – in a 50 mph section of track – just before it derailed. Passengers have described being tossed around easily in the cars, with luggage and seats flying.
“Amtrak is heartbroken by what happened here,” Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman said Thursday at a press conference. He added that it has been 28 years – and 300 million passengers – since an Amtrak train had derailed in the Northeast Corridor.
The NTSB will be investigating several factors to determine the cause of the crash, including the operations and condition of the train, and the signals.
“Our mission to to find out not only what happened but why it happened so we can prevent it from happening again,” said Robert Sumwalt, of the NTSB.
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