An Amtrak passenger train traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago struck a dump truck on Monday in a remote area of Missouri, killing three people and injuring dozens more as rail cars tumbled off the tracks and landed on their sides, officials said.
Two of those killed were on the train and one was in the truck, Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesperson Cpl. Justin Dunn said. It was not immediately clear exactly how many people were hurt, the patrol said, but hospitals reported receiving more than 40 patients from the crash and were expecting more.
Amtrak's Southwest Chief was carrying about 207 passengers and crew members when the collision happened near Mendon at a rural intersection on a gravel road with no lights or electronic controls, according to the highway patrol. Officials were still trying to determine the exact number of people aboard. Seven cars derailed, the patrol said.
It's too early to speculate on why the truck was on the tracks, said National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy. A team of NTSB investigators will arrive Tuesday, she said. Trains won't be able to run on the track for "a matter of days" while they gather evidence, she added.
Republican state Rep. Peggy McGaugh was at the high school. She said locals heard about the crash and started frying chicken, making sandwiches and delivering pallets of water.
"Being the small community this is, nobody wants to be the hero but everyone wants to help," McGaugh said.
Amtrak is a federally supported company that operates more than 300 passenger trains daily in nearly every contiguous U.S. state and parts of Canada.
It was the second Amtrak collision in as many days. Three people in a car were killed Sunday afternoon when an Amtrak commuter train smashed into it in Northern California, authorities said.
The Southwest Chief takes about two days to travel from Los Angeles to Chicago, picking up passengers at stops in between. Mendon, with a population of about 160, is about 84 miles (135 kilometers) northeast of Kansas City.