Eye Nosh: Is This the Best Pastrami in America?
The Creepy, Yet Beautiful Street Art of Dan Witz Now in L.A.
Does Traffic Get Worse After the End of Daylight Saving Time?
Silver Lake Art Crawl: Also a Food Truck Crawl?
Thomas Keller Comes Home: Book Signings and a Recipe(!)
Update: The death toll is now 25.
Yesterday's horrific train crash claimed 24 lives, authorities confirmed this afternoon. That number is expected to rise as bodies of some victims have yet to be recovered from the twisted remnants of the first car of the Metrolink commuter train.
"There is zero chance anyone survived being crushed by a locomotive,'' said Metrolink spokesperson Denise Tyrell. "I wish I could say there was...."
There was no official update on the conditions of the 45 people hospitalized in critical condition following the crash, however, an AP telephone survey of five hospitals found nine of 34 patients still critical.
Metrolink officials took responsibility for the incident this morning, citing probable human error in concluding its preliminary investigation. Officials were hesitant to point fingers while work continued to recover the remaining bodies from the wreckage. Statements from both Gov. Schwarzenegger and Mayor Villaraigosa this afternoon urged patience as the NTSB began its investigation.
See the latest news chopper video report below:
(AP Photo/ Rene Macura)
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Apparently the seven newly found (since last night) dead were under the Metrolink traction engine. I cannot imagine the horror of being crushed by 400 tons of iron and steel.
I can only hope that the end was as quick and painless as possible.
This is going to be a difficult investigation. It must be both accurate and speedy. The public will demand to know the cause(s) quickly, but for the sake of future safety, the conclusions must be error free and lead to prevention. There really is no reason why train travel should be any less safe than air travel in this country.
I live a few blocks away from this crash. My son goes to the school where they are holding the families. We lay in bed and listened to the choppers all night. And my heart goes out to every single person affected by this tragedy.
I cannot imagine the pain of these families, I can only hold them in my thoughts and prayers. I lost my dad suddenly too and I found Loss and Grieving books to be so helpful.
The only way I know I can help is to share with them what I found to be helpful to me: http://lovingstevenmiller.wordpress.com. May God bless every single person involved.
My heart goes out to the families of the dead and injured as a result of this horrible accident. As Dingo says above, a full investigation is needed in order to improve safety and prevent future such tragedies.
But let us not lose sight of the fact that train travel in America is incredibly safe. It is certainly safer than being a motorist, cyclist or pedestrian. I am not sure exactly how the rate compares with air travel, but I think that air and train travel will rank #1 and #2 as the safest way to travel.
Remember that auto deaths totaled 42,643 in 2003 for an average of about 116 deaths per day: day in and day out, year after year.
http://www.driveandstayalive.com/info%20section/statistics/stats-usa_indiv-states_per-capita_2003.htm
Peace,
Tuds
R.I.P Atul. We will miss you very, very much.
http://projects.latimes.com/metrolink-crash/name/atul-vyas/
A very complete analysis of other issues aside from if the conductor was text messaging is available below. Please ignore, if you need to, that the source is the World Socialist Web Site.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/trai-s15.shtml
"However, the history of head-on collisions and safety studies indicate that there are many factors that could have played into the tragic outcome on September 12. The rapid move to assign blame essentially places responsibility on the individual engineer before considering these other factors."