Death toll rises to four in Amtrak derailment

Local hospitals treated about 150 people for injuries after a deadly train wreck in rural Missouri. The Amtrak was traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago on Monday when it struck a dump truck and came off the rails in Mendon, Mo. Authorities still don’t know why the dump truck was on the train tracks. A local farmer told the Kansas City Star he had asked the railroad to add signals to the crossing, trim surrounding brush to improve visibility, and level out the steep grade leading up to the tracks. Three people, including the truck driver, died at the scene, and one died later at the hospital.

How common are train wrecks? This was the second Amtrak crash in as many days. In Northern California, another train killed three people in a car. While deaths due to train crashes are rare, the average number of derailments per year since 1975 is over 1,000.