Amtrak train derails in Missouri causing ‘multiple’ casualties

A passenger train hit a dump truck and derailed in Missouri on Monday afternoon, Amtrak said.

Citing an Amtrak official, CNN reported that at least 50 people were injured and multiple people had been killed. The report was not immediately confirmed.

The crash came a day after an Amtrak train in California collided with a vehicle at an unprotected crossing along a rural dirt road, leaving three people dead and at least two injured.

The Southwest Chief was carrying about 243 passengers and 12 crew when it collided with the truck in Mendon at 1.42pm, Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods said.

The train was traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Social media posts from the scene in Missouri showed several rail cars on their sides. The state highway patrol said eight cars derailed.

Helicopter video shown by KMBC-TV in Kansas City showed rail cars on their side as emergency responders used ladders to climb into one. The video also showed six medical helicopters parked nearby waiting to transport patients.

A hospital spokesperson earlier said three passengers were taken from the scene to University hospital in Columbia. Their conditions were not known.

Robert Nightingale, a passenger in a sleeper car on the long-distance service, said he was sleeping when the crash happened.

He told CNN: "It all happened like slow motion. It started to rock and, and rock, and then flicker, and then it just all of a sudden all this dust was through my window."

Nightingale, who was uninjured, found a way to climb on to the side of the train.

The highway patrol and other local law enforcement units were at the scene to help and Amtrak said it has deployed resources to the site.

Passengers on the train included high school students from Pleasant Ridge high school in Easton, Kansas who were headed to a Future Business Leaders of America conference in Chicago, the school superintendent, Tim Beying, told the Kansas City Star.

The Southwest Chief takes about two days to travel from Los Angeles to Chicago.

Mendon, with a population of about 160, is about 84 miles north-east of Kansas City.