Sixty people were injured — five critically and one of those very critically — when a commuter train derailed in Connecticut and was hit by an oncoming train in the midst of the Friday evening rush hour.
An eastbound Metro-North train derailed just after 6 p.m. and was hit by a westbound train between the Bridgeport and Fairfield stations, officials said, in what Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy called "a very serious incident" at a news conference late Friday.
"We came to a sudden halt. We were jerked. There was smoke," Alex Cohen, a Canadian passenger on the westbound train en route to New York, told NBC Connecticut.
"People were screaming; people were really nervous. We were pretty shaken up. They had to smash a window to get us out," he said.
The sixty people hurt in the crash were transported to St. Vincent's Hospital and Bridgeport Hospital, where most of the injured were seeking treatment for minor injuries.
It was not immediately clear what had caused the derailment.
"I have no reason to believe this is anything other than an accident," Malloy added.
"We're going to do a full investigation to see what exactly the cause of the accident is," said Capt. Jim McKenna of the MTA Police. The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team of investigators, too.
Chaos Along the New Haven Line
Malloy warned that the crash had caused extensive track damage along one of the nation's busiest corridors, and commuters throughout the Northeast could face difficult travel in the days ahead.
Eastbound Metro-North service is disrupted at South Norwalk, while westbound service is suspended past Bridgeport. Amtrak has suspended service between New York and Boston indefinitely.
On Friday, the collision roiled the weekend commute for a wave of workers heading home from New York — not just the hundreds of passengers on each of the trains that collided, but hundreds more on the trains behind them.
The small South Norwalk station was a chaotic scene in the minutes just after the crash, as hundreds of passengers scrambled — many of them in vain — to hail cabs to complete their trips home.
Service Disruptions Could Last Days
Malloy said that commuters should expect the Metro-North service disruptions to last at least until Monday, and Fairfield Police Chief Gary McNamara said service could be disrupted well into next week.
That was largely, officials said, because two of the four tracks in the segment of the rail line were already out of service for long-term improvement projects.
Normal service was not expected to resume until a full investigation was made, the track fully assessed and repairs made. That could take some time, since the train cars can't be removed until after an investigation, and since they must be removed by crane, the MTA said in a statement.
Stay with NBC Connecticut for more updates on this developing story.
Photo Credit: Debby Burke