HOBOKEN, N.J. _ A speeding train carrying rush-hour commuters to New York City crashed into a wall at a station in Hoboken on Thursday morning, killing one person and injuring more than 100.
Among those most seriously injured was the train's engineer, who was in the front car when it slammed into the wall. He was reported to be in critical condition. The confirmed death was a woman who was reportedly waiting on the platform.
The investigation of the crash is likely to focus on why the train did not slow down when it arrived at the station.
"Trains normally come in at 2 or 3 mph by the time they get to the resting spot where people depart," Mike Larson, a New Jersey transit employee, told reporters in Hoboken. "He came in at a high rate of speed. He went straight through the bumper block, through the air, took the ceiling out.
"It was just horrific, an explosion of concrete dust and electrical wires," Larson added.
Another New Jersey transit employee said the collision was so loud that he thought at first it was an earthquake.
"It shook the whole place like an earthquake. I came out and saw bodies all over the place," William Blaine told television reporters.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Fox television that there was no indication that the crash was anything but a "tragic accident."
"The train came in at much too high a rate of speed and the question is why is that?" said Christie.
In past crashes of this type, the cause has been a lack of attention by the engineer or an incapacitating event such as a heart attack. But in the wake of a series of explosions in New York and New Jersey this month, investigators will also look at sabotage or terrorism, although authorities said there is no evidence of either.
The crash took place at 8:45 a.m. and involved train No. 1614, which originates in Spring Valley, N.Y., runs through New Jersey and ends in Hoboken, which lies on the west bank of the Hudson River across from Manhattan. The train line ends at the Hoboken terminal, where commuters transfer to subway and other transit lines to reach their ultimate destinations.
With the strong smell of burnt metal still in the air outside the Hoboken station, Norfolk Southern engineer William Blaine recounted what he saw when the train careened into the station.
"It was horror," Blaine said. "I walked away 30 seconds before. It was a kaboom, like an earthquake. It sounded like a bomb."
Passengers staggered out of the train with head and leg injuries amid live electrical wires and running water, said Blaine, who was on a break and had stopped for coffee at the time of the crash.
Linda Albelli, 62, told Reuters she knew something was wrong a moment before the impact.
"I thought to myself, 'Oh, my god, he's not slowing up, and this is where we usually stop,'" Albelli said. "'We're going too fast,' and with that there was this tremendous crash."
"The next thing I know, we are plowing through the platform," passenger Bhagyesh Shah told WNBC-TV. "It was for a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity."
The most serious injuries were at the front of the train. Many people were bleeding from gashes in their heads. One woman was described as having a gash running down the length of her leg.
The National Transportation Safety Board was opening an investigation into the crash and will send a team of investigators to the scene, said Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the board.
The Federal Railroad Administration also dispatched investigators to the crash scene, said spokesman Matthew Lehner.
Rail service was suspended in and out of Hoboken
In May 2011, a similar accident took place at the Hoboken station when a train traveling at an excessive speed plowed into the bumper post at the end of the platform. Thirty people were injured in that accident.
