BOURBONNAIS, Ill. -- Rescue crews combed through a twisted, charred rail car Tuesday as hopes of finding survivors faded after Amtrak's City of New Orleans struck a truck and derailed. At least 13 people were killed and others were missing.
"To find survivors in the wreckage would be pretty unlikely," Bourbonnais Fire Chief Mike Harshbarger said.The train, bound from Chicago to New Orleans, careened off the tracks shortly after 9:30 p.m. Monday when it slammed into a semitrailer loaded with heavy steel bars at a crossing 50 miles south of Chicago.
All of the dead were aboard one sleeper car near the front of the train, which was rammed by one of the engines and then set afire by leaking diesel fuel.
Rescue workers were digging by hand through debris in that car Tuesday morning, Harshbarger said. The double-deck sleeper car was broken in the middle, and much of it had been damaged by fire.
All the other cars had been searched, he said.
Amtrak said in a news release that the local coroner had confirmed 13 deaths. Earlier, authorities had said they had not accounted for six people.
Fire Capt. Ed St. Louis said earlier that 196 survivors from the train were at hospitals or had checked in at a local school where passengers were cared for by the Red Cross.
More than 100 people were taken to hospitals, and at least 12 were in critical condition.
"I was trying to go to sleep. Then all of the sudden everything just started crashing and catching on fire and people hollering and running. It was awful," said Blanche Jones, a passenger from Memphis, Tenn.
"We were trying to get out. We couldn't get out, couldn't find a way out. That was the most devastating thing of all," Jones said as she limped out of a school that served as a temporary shelter.
"By the grace of God, I just went down a stairway and found a way to get out and let everybody know how to get out," she said.
The truck was leaving a nearby Birmingham Steel Co. facility.
Cy Gura, a safety engineer with the National Transportation Safety Board team at the scene, said Tuesday that the driver told authorities he didn't see the train or flashing warning lights until he had already started driving across the tracks.
The man, whose name was not released, was unable to get entirely across in time, Gura said.
"He's very sad and upset. He felt he did whatever he thought he could do to clear the train track, but he didn't do it," Gura said.
The speed limit on that section of track is 79 mph, but the precise speed of the train at the time was unknown.
"The windows rattled," said Don O'Dell, who lives a block away from the scene and was watching TV when he heard the crash. "We got up and looked around to see what was going on."
Gura said a twisted pile of metal wreckage at the crash site contained two locomotives and six train cars. One engine was split in half.
Crew members clambered atop overturned cars searching through an eerie, smoky haze. Firefighters doused flames on one of the engines and another car.
Some of the rescuers peeled off their coats for the victims.