Moscow Subway Crash: Hundreds Injured – Twenty Dead

A subway crash in Moscow, Russia, during the morning rush hour killed over twenty people and sent over 150 passengers to the hospital, according to Fox News.

Officials said that over 50 of those injured were in “grave condition.”

Over 1,100 people were rescued from the subway train, which was stuck between two subway stations, in a rescue effort that took over seven hours. The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry released a video of several subway cars coiled, snake-like, taking up the entire width of the subway tunnel. Rescue workers maneuvered over the subway cars, frantically trying to tear open crushed subway doors.

Paramedics carried one blanket-covered woman from the site of the subway crash to a lawn near the Triumphal Arch, where she was put into one of four rescue helicopters on the scene. Rescued victims of the subway crash huddled under the watchful eye of emergency officials in the extreme summer heat as they awaited delivery to area hospitals.

The cause of the crash? According to Fox News, a power surge triggered a subway emergency alarm which caused the subway train to come to an abrupt stop in Western Moscow. The Russian Capital’s Mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, told reporters that “unnamed officials will be not only be fired, but also charged with crimes.”

According to ABC, by late afternoon, officials had laid out seven bodies under sheets and were working hard to extract 12 more from the subway crash wreckage. Among the dead were one citizen of China and one from Tajikistan.

One victim of the subway crash, a 24 year-old with a bloody cut above his eye, told reporters from Rossiya 24, a local news outlet, that he “felt a jolt before the train stopped abruptly.”

“There was smoke and we were trapped inside,” the subway crash victim said. “It’s a miracle we got out. I thought it was the end.”

Reportedly, although technical glitches are the norm in the Moscow Subway, there have been no deadly incidents on the subway in decades. However, more than 100 passengers have been killed due to terrorist attacks in the subway system since 2000, including two bomb blasts that were set off in 2010 that killed 40 people.

Vladmir Markin, spokesman for the Investigative Committee, said in a televised report that investigators were considering a fault in the train cars among the possible cause of the subway crash.

The subway crash occurred near Park Pobedy, which is the deepest station below Moscow. The subway station is over 275 feet below street level, which is making rescuing victims of the subway crash exceedingly difficult.