LOS ANGELES - Emergency crews found more victims early Saturday in the mangled wreckage of a commuter train that smashed head-on into a freight train, raising the death toll to 17 in the deadliest U.S. passenger train accident in 15 years.
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Distraught relatives and friends of passengers awaited word on their loved ones as rescue workers delicately dismantled a crushed Metrolink passenger car in search of victims.
The search was expected to last into Sunday.
"Clearly the injuries are going to mount and so are the fatalities," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.
The cause of the Friday afternoon collision in suburban Chatsworth had not been determined.
A total of 135 people were injured with at least 82 taken to hospitals, many in serious or critical condition, fire officials said.
Worried relatives and friends gathered at nearby Chatsworth High School to wait for news, and the hallways occasionally erupted with sobbing as some learned that loved ones had died.
Debra Nieves was concerned about her sister, Donna Remata, 49, who worked in downtown Los Angeles.
"That was her train and she's not home," said Nieves, 41, of Long Beach. "But until I find out for sure that they found her, I'm not going to leave."
The impact rammed the Metrolink engine backward into a passenger car, which rested on its side with the engine still inside it early Saturday, and accordioned the freight train cars. Two other Metrolink cars remained upright. Crews had to put out a fire under part of the train.
During the night, the teams used hydraulic jacks to keep the passenger car from falling over and other specialized rescue equipment to gently tear apart the metal.
Bulldozers were used to raise the commuter train's engine and timbers were slid beneath it as firefighters worked to free a body pinned under the engine.
Fire Capt. Steve Ruda said the goal was to eliminate every piece of metal and gradually work into the passenger spaces of the double-decker rail car.
"There's human beings in there and it's going to be painstaking to get them out," Ruda said. "They'll have to surgically remove them."
His firefighters had never seen such carnage, he said.
"It's the worst feeling in the world because you know what you're going to find," said fire Capt. Alex Arriola, who had crawled into the bottom of the smashed passenger car. "You have to put aside the fact that it's someone's husband, daughter or friend."
Officials said there were 222 people on the Metrolink train and three Union Pacific employees aboard the freight train.
Asked how the two trains ended up on the same track, Steven Kulm, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration: "We are nowhere near having any information on that."
Kulm said the federal investigation will be headed by the National Transportation Safety Board, while his agency will conduct a review of whether any federal rail safety regulations were violated.
Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoe Richmond said it is common in California for freight and commuter trains to use one track.
"You see it a lot in California where commuter trains share tracks with freight trains," Richmond said, adding she couldn't speculate about the cause of the crash.
Leslie Burnstein saw the crash from her home and heard screams of agony as she ran through a haze of smoke toward the wreckage. She pulled victims out one by one.
"It was horrendous," said Burnstein, a psychologist. "Blood was everywhere. ... I heard people yelling, screaming in pain, begging for help."
Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said the Metrolink train left Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and was headed northwest to Moorpark in Ventura County. The trains collided at about 4:30 p.m. in the Chatsworth area of the San Fernando Valley, near a 500-foot-long tunnel underneath Stoney Point Park.
On the north side of the tunnel, there is a siding, a length of track where one train can wait for another to pass, Tyrrell said.
"I do not know what caused the wreck," said Tyrrell who broke down crying and was shaking. "Obviously two trains are not supposed to be on the same track at the same time."
Until Friday, the worst disaster in Metrolink's history occurred on Jan. 26, 2005, in suburban Glendale when a man parked a gasoline-soaked SUV on railroad tracks. A Metrolink train struck the SUV and derailed, striking another Metrolink train traveling the other way, killing 11 people and injuring about 180 others. Juan Alvarez was convicted this year of murder for causing the crash.
That was the worst U.S. rail tragedy since March 15, 1999, when an Amtrak train hit a truck and derailed near Bourbonnais, Ill., killing 11 people and injuring more than 100.
The Sunset Limited was involved in the worst accident in Amtrak's 28-year history. On Sept. 22, 1993, 42 passengers and five crew members died when the train plunged off a trestle into a bayou near Mobile, Ala. The trestle had been damaged minutes earlier by a towboat.
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