The rear car of a southbound A train derailed in a subway tunnel in Harlem Thursday night, injuring 13 people, knocking over support pillars in the station and twisting the rear car into a jumbled wreck of sheared metal, police and fire officials said.
None of the injuries were believed to be life-threatening. Two firefighters responding to the accident were also slightly hurt.The silver train was traveling on an express track with about 100 people on board, and most of its cars were already in the station when the rear car fishtailed and jumped the rails at 10:11 p.m., officials said.
The 75-foot-long car was so badly damaged that officials initially thought three different cars had derailed. No passengers had been riding in the last car, and officials at the scene expressed amazement that there were not more injuries.
"It is an absolute miracle no one was killed," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said as he emerged from the subway tunnel after surveying the wreckage. "The car was crushed, mashed, split. It really is a frightening thing to see," the mayor added. "It's like a sight out of a Bruce Willis movie."
Officials could not immediately determine what caused the derailment, but Giuliani and others said they suspected that something had gone wrong with a track switch. "It doesn't look like human error," Giuliani said. "Looks like something went wrong that no one could have anticipated."
Jared Lebow, a spokesman for the Transit Authority, said it appeared that the rear car had accidentally been switched to a spur track.