A New York City subway train derailed after colliding with another train on Thursday, leaving 24 injured.
Only minor injuries were reported, but the disaster caused major service disruptions across Manhattan.
The incident occurred near the 96th Street station on the Upper West Side at approximately 3 p.m. — the city's afternoon rush hour.
According to a report from ABC News, "one train carrying about 300 passengers and an out-of-service Metropolitan Transportation Authority train with four workers on board hit each other near the 96th Street station, police and transit officials said at the scene. A “derailment” is when at least one wheel of a train leaves the track."
"Photos posted on social media by city emergency management officials showed the passenger train partially off the tracks in an area that had a track-switching mechanism," the report continued. "Officials said there were no immediate signs of equipment failure and investigators were seeing if human error was involved."
Richard Davey, president of New York City Transit for the MTA, told reporters that the out-of-service train was stuck because someone pulled several emergency stop cords. The workers were on board to reset them.
“Thankfully there were no serious injuries,” Davey said. “Obviously two trains should not be bumping into one another. We are going to get to the bottom of that.”
“It’s a little messy down there,” he added. “It’s going take us a while to get this service back and running.”
Firefighters helped to evacuate the derailed train and hundreds of people from another subway train that was not involved but had been stuck in the tunnel behind the collision.
Seven passengers and one crew member were taken to the hospital.
Service on the 1, 2, and 3 lines covering most of Manhattan was out-of-service on Thursday and into early Friday morning due to the incident.
City officials said they were working to try and restore service by Friday's morning commute. 1/2/3 service will be partially suspended at many stations in Manhattan through at least the early morning. Our crews are making repairs to a train that derailed near 96 St.
When repairs are made, we will move this train to its storage facility, inspect the tracks, and make any… pic.twitter.com/qmIFpeLpCN
— NYCT Subway (@NYCTSubway) January 5, 2024
"1/2/3 service will be partially suspended at many stations in Manhattan through at least the early morning. Our crews are making repairs to a train that derailed near 96 St," the MTA posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday evening. "When repairs are made, we will move this train to its storage facility, inspect the tracks, and make any needed repairs to the tracks and infrastructure."
