Two people were killed and 35 were taken to hospitals Sunday morning when an Amtrak passenger train struck a railroad backhoe that was doing maintenance work just south of Philadelphia.
Authorities said the two dead were not on board the train. They declined to say whether they were Amtrak workers engaged in work on the tracks.
But U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he learned from Amtrak board chairman Anthony Coscia that both workers killed were Amtrak employees.
The Palmetto Train 89 originated in Boston on Saturday night, making multiple stops along the way, including New York City at 6:05 a.m. Sunday. It had departed Philadelphia just past 7:30 a.m. when the derailment occurred in Chester, Pa., just a few miles from Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station in a neighborhood of row homes and warehouses. The train was to arrive at Washington’s Union Station at 10 a.m.
BRUSSELS – It was an emotional send-off on Sunday for a Brussels Airlines plane heading to the Portuguese city of Faro – the first passenger flight to take off from Brussels Airport since suicide bombings on March 22 ripped through its check-in counters and killed 16 people.
Airport officials suggested the first flight out was a symbolic victory over those who sowed death and hate, but said it would be months until full service is back.
Security at the airport was tight with new check-in procedures for passengers in temporary structures.
Two other planes were leaving Sunday – Brussels Airlines flights to Athens and Turin, Italy. The three flights were a test run for a European aviation hub that used to handle 600 flights a day and plans to slowly climb back to normal capacity.
BAKU, Azerbaijan – Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry announced a unilateral cease-fire Sunday against the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, but rebel forces in the area said that they continued to come under fire from Azerbaijani forces.
Fighting in what was a dormant conflict for two decades flared up over the weekend with a boy and at least 30 troops killed on both sides. Each side blamed the other for Saturday’s escalation, the worst since the end of a full-scale war in 1994.
The Defense Ministry said, in response to pleas from international organizations, it will be unilaterally “suspending a counter-offensive and response on the territories occupied by Armenia.” The ministry added it will not focus on fortifying the territory that Azerbaijan has “liberated.” It did not elaborate.
Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan, has been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces and the Armenian military since a war ended in 1994 with no resolution of the region’s status. The conflict is fueled by long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azeris.
Associated Press & Washington Post
