A train derailed into a creek Monday night in Central California, leaving nine people injured according, to KCRA-TV, an NBC affiliate in Sacramento.
Rescue crews fought the creek’s currents to pull riders from a partially submerged rail car, the Associated Press reported.
"It was dark, wet, it was raining. It was very chaotic," Alameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Kelly told the AP. "This is an absolute miracle that no one was killed, no passengers or first responders."
The Alameda County Fire Department tweeted that nine people were injured in the crash — five people suffered minor injuries and four people suffered serious, non-life-threatening injuries, the TV station reported.
The Altamont Corridor Express No. 10 commuter train was traveling from San Jose to Stockton when the first two cars went off the tracks near Niles Canyon Road in Sunol, a rural area of Alameda County about 45 miles east of San Francisco, the AP said.
Altamont Corridor Express officials said the train struck a tree on the train tracks just after 7:30 p.m. at mile post 34 between Fremont and Pleasanton, KCRA said.
The first of the two derailed cars then became partially submerged in the creek along the tracks.
Altamont Corridor Express train official Steve Walker told San Jose TV station KNTV that the first car was carrying six passengers and one crew member when it fell into the creek. The second derailed car, he said, remained upright.
Three more cars behind, as well as the locomotive, stayed on the tracks, Walker said.
Passengers told KNTV that there was panic and confusion.
Rak Akhter told the TV station he was in the car that fell into Alameda Creek and he saw a woman lying in mud just under a train car hanging off the tracks. "We were all just panicking," he said.
Passengers were evacuated and checked by paramedics. The uninjured riders were transported to the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, the Alameda County Fire Department said.
The ACE No. 10 train, which travels from Silicon Valley to Central California, stopping in eight cities along the way, was carrying 214 passengers, officials said.
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