Metro-North passenger train derails in New York, 4 dead and 63 injured

December 2, 2013

Metro-North

New York, Dec 2: A suburban New York train derailed on Sunday, killing at least four people and injuring 63, including 11 critically, when all seven cars of a Metro-North train ran off the tracks on a curved section of the line, officials said.

The crash happened at 7:20 a.m. about 100 yards (metres) north of Metro North's Spuyten Duyvil station in the city's Bronx borough, said Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for Metro North, a subsidiary of New York State's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

A spokesman for the city fire department confirmed the number of dead and said 11 people were in critical condition, six were in serious condition with non-life threatening injuries and another 46 sustained minor injuries.

The train was about half full at the time of the crash, with about 150 passengers, the MTA said.

"On a workday, fully occupied, it would have been a tremendous disaster," New York City Fire Commissioner Salvatore Joseph Cassano told reporters at the scene.

At least one rail car was lying toppled near the edge of a river and police.

New York Police Department divers were seen in the water near the scene of the accident, and dozens of firefighters were on the scene helping pull people from the wreckage. None of the passengers were in the water, according to Marjorie Anders of Metro-North.

The derailment was the latest in a string of problems this year for Metro North, the second busiest U.S. commuter railroad in terms of monthly ridership.

In July, 10 cars of a CSX freight train carrying trash derailed in the same vicinity, Anders said. Partial service was restored four days later, but full service did not return for more than a week.

In May, a Metro-North passenger train struck a commuter train between Fairfield and Bridgeport, Connecticut, injuring more than 70 people and halting service on the line.

The MTA said Sunday's accident marked the first customer fatality in Metro North's three-decade history and that it was a "black day" for the railroad.

After touring the scene, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said officials from the National Transportation Safety Board were traveling to the scene and would conduct a thorough investigation.

"We think everybody is accounted for, we've gone over the site a number of times," Cuomo said, adding his thoughts and prayers were with the dead and injured.

The MTA said details about how the accident would impact the morning commute on Monday were not yet available.

Amtrak said its Empire Line Service between New York City and Albany was being restored after being halted immediately after the crash. Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service between Boston and Washington is not affected.

Those injured were being transported to area hospitals, said New York City Fire Department spokesman Michael Parrella. A center for passengers' family members has been set up at JFK High School in the Bronx.

The train was a diesel with seven cars. The locomotive was on the north end pushing the cars southward.

This train was not scheduled to stop at the Spuyten Duyvil station and was headed toward Grand Central terminal in Manhattan, the MTA said.

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News Network
April 28,2024

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Students in Paris blocked access to a campus building at a French university on Friday, as pro-Palestine demonstrations reach Europe.

The students occupied the central campus building of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, and dozens of others blocked its entrance, echoing protest action at American universities.

Students inspired by Gaza solidarity encampments at campuses in the United States blocked access to a campus building at the prestigious French university on Friday.

They blocked the entrance with trash cans, wooden platforms and other items.

The occupation of the Paris university campus came after police broke up a separate protest at the university’s amphitheater outside one of its Paris campuses.

Scores of student protesters gathered at the building’s windows, chanting slogans and holding placards reading “We are all Palestinians,” in defiance of administrators who students say called the police on their peers two days earlier.

Pro-Palestinian student protesters had occupied the amphitheater outside one of the university’s Paris campuses on Wednesday evening.

The US-style student protests, which began over the months-long Israeli regime’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, kicked off in the United States and have now spread to European capitals as well as Australia.

In the German capital Berlin, several people were arrested as police violently cleared a camp of Gaza war protesters at the German parliament.

Pro-Palestinian activists are demanding a permanent ceasefire, an end to the Israeli atrocities, and an arms embargo of the Tel Aviv regime.

The Israeli regime launched the war on Gaza on October 7 last year. The genocidal war has killed more than 34,356 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

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News Network
April 24,2024

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Pro-Gaza US protesters in New York's Columbia University say they will stay put despite the university's harassment and police crackdown.

The protesters said they refuse to concede to "cowardly threats and blatant intimidation" by university administration, asserting that they will continue to peacefully protest.

Columbia University threatened the students with the national guard after refusing to bargain in good faith.

The university announced a midnight deadline for talks regarding the removal of pro-Palestine encampments on the varsity campus, warning that their campsite will be forcefully cleared by police if no agreement is reached.

The university campus is being used as a campsite for hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters and other activists, who have gathered and set up numerous tents.

Pro-Palestinian protests at colleges have demanded that their universities divest from corporations doing business with Israel or profiting off the war in Gaza. At Columbia, protesters have also asked the university to end a dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University.

The deadline was announced by Columbia University President Minouche Shafik late Tuesday, as authorities across major American universities have launched their repression campaigns against the pro-Palestinian protests on campuses, amid rising anger over US's support for Israel. 

Shafik has issued a midnight deadline to protesters and organizers, warning that failure to comply will result in the forcible clearance of the camp by the New York Police Department (NYPD).

The university has engaged in discussions with student leaders behind the protests, which are part of a series of protests taking place at various colleges nationwide and resulting in multiple arrests.

The purpose of these talks is to address the encampment on the west lawn of Columbia's Morningside Heights campus.

American universities are grappling with the challenge of maintaining a delicate balance between the right to protest and freedom of speech, while also ensuring campus rules and safety, as tensions surrounding the ongoing war in Gaza continue to permeate across campuses.

Meanwhile, Shafik underscored the importance of free speech and the right to demonstrate, but highlighted significant safety issues, disruptions to campus activities, and a strained environment due to the encampment. She firmly stated that any form of intimidation, harassment, or discrimination would not be accepted.

The arrest of more than 100 protesters at Columbia University last week led to more campus demonstrations, at New York University, Yale, and the University of California, Berkeley.

Palestinian university professor Sami al-Arian said what is happening across US university campuses is unprecedented.

Al-Arian said, "I lived four decades in the US, 28 years of which were in academic settings. During my time, it was a very challenging struggle to present an anti-Zionist narrative."

"But the passion, courage, humanity, creativity, and determination displayed these days by students across US campuses make me proud. The Zionist grip on US society is weakening and waning."

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News Network
May 5,2024

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Iran has urged Muslim countries to cut all relations with the Israeli regime as means of pressuring Tel Aviv to end its ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks on Saturday, addressing the 15th Heads of State and Government Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Gambia’s capital Banjul.

“Beyond doubt, this time period will also pass by, despite all its hardships and adversities for the Palestinian nation,” he said.

“However, the manner and quality of the role that is played by us, Muslim states, in the face of this crisis will go down in history,” the top diplomat added.

“Undoubtedly, severance of diplomatic and economic ties and [imposition of] practical arms and trade embargo [on Israel] serves as an important means of cessation of its genocide in Gaza and atrocities in the West Bank and the Noble al-Quds.”

At least 34,654 people have died in Gaza since October 7, when the Israeli regime began the war in response to al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.

Despite the unabated campaign of bloodshed and destruction, the regime has so far fallen short of realizing its goals, including defeating Gaza’s resistance, causing forced displacement of the territory’s entire population to neighboring Egypt, and enabling the release of those who were taken captive during al-Aqsa Storm.

Amir-Abdollahian said Gaza’s developments proved that elimination of the Palestinian resistance “was nothing but an illusion.”

“Because the Israeli regime is not a legitimate government. It is only an occupying apartheid power,” he said, adding, “Passage of time is not going to lend legitimacy to an occupying power.”

The foreign minister asserted that realization of sustainable peace and security in the region was only possible through cessation of the regime’s occupation of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, and manifestation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

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