(Image source: WMAQ)
BY TRACY PFEIFFER
ANCHOR JENNIFER MECKLES
You're watching multisource US video news analysis from Newsy.
Details are still filtering in as officials investigate a fiery crash between an Amtrak train and a semi-truck.
“Cellphone video captures the panic and confusion as fire and smoke billow from the train - a scramble to safety after a fatal collision in northern Nevada. This tractor trailer slammed into the side of an Amtrak train moving at high speed. Some 200 passengers and more than a dozen crew members were aboard.”(NBC)
CNN reports -- Two people have been confirmed dead from the crash, including the driver of the tractor-trailer that struck the train.
KGO REPORTER: “Some passengers were trapped inside as smoke from the burning cars soared into the blue desert sky. Two hundred four passengers and fourteen crew members were on board en route from Chicago to Emryville. The crash happened without warning.”
JIM BICKLEY, AMTRAK PASSENGER: “We feel and hear a ‘boom’ and a jolt, and then a big ball of flame went past the window.”(KGO)
A survivor of the crash tells CBS -- the immediate aftermath of was quote- “surprisingly orderly.”
PASSENGER: “They were very supportive of each other, of the elderly, of the people who were injured. …But I think the scariest part is looking across the train and out the windows and seeing the wall of flames just on the other side of the train and not knowing whether we should exit the train or remain seated, or what was going to happen next.”
Finally, Fox News reports -- railroad officials say it’s too early to tell how long the tracks will be closed due to the crash.
“The collision occurred on tracks owned by Union Pacific Railroad. It was uncertain how the accident would affect train traffic on the railroad's main east-west line across Nevada... About 20 to 25 freight trains use the line daily.”
Federal investigators are now looking into the driving and medical records of the tractor-trailer operator -- while autopsy results are pending.
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Transcript by Newsy.
