By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – A fourth person has died after an Amtrak train carrying about 275 passengers and a dozen crew hit a dump truck at a railroad crossing on Monday and derailed, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said on Tuesday.
The fourth victim was a passenger aboard the train, which was traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago when it collided with a dump truck near Mendon, Missouri, about 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Kansas City, Missouri. Two other passengers and the truck driver were also killed in the collision.
Eight cars and two locomotives derailed, Amtrak officials said, leaving all but one car lying on its side along the track surrounded by grass and farmland. Passengers evacuated the wreck through windows facing skyward.
A Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesman said the collision occurred at an uncontrolled crossing without lights or signals.
About 150 people were transported from the scene to 10 area hospitals with injuries that ranged from minor to severe, the patrol said on Tuesday.
A team of 16 investigators from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were due at the crash site early Tuesday morning to begin an investigation.
It was too early to speculate on a cause of the wreck or the speed of the train, NTSB officials said.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
