A subway train derailed Tuesday as it entered a station, tossing people to the floor, forcing hundreds of shaken-up passengers to evacuate through darkened tunnels and delivering another jolt to a transit system plagued by aging equipment and reliability problems.
Nearly three dozen, or 36 people, suffered minor injuries in the derailment, which happened in Harlem just before 10 am (local time).
Photos of the train posted on social media showed its metal side deeply scraped and dented from being dragged along the wall of the subway tunnel. Debris, including broken signaling equipment and chunks of concrete, were left in the train's wake.
“We started seeing sparks through the windows. People were falling,” said passenger Susan Pak, of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Sparks from the skidding train briefly ignited garbage on the track, but there was no serious fire and the train stayed upright, said Joe Lhota, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The cause was under investigation.
Lhota said the emergency braking system on the train triggered, but it was unclear why. He said he didn't know if a passenger had pulled the emergency brake.
The derailment came after a winter and spring marked by mechanical failures, power outages and several episodes in which passengers were trapped on stuck trains for an hour or more. Some state lawmakers demanded that the Legislature take up emergency funding for the system in a special session scheduled for Wednesday.
Three other trains approaching the station halted in their tracks. Emergency crews shut off track power after derailments to prevent evacuees from being electrocuted.
Lhota, who was appointed as the MTA's chairman last week with a mandate to get the system back on track, had to skip a planned media tour of the refurbished station to deal with the derailment.
The number of subway delays has tripled in the past five years, to 70,000 per month. In recent months, several high-profile incidents have occurred, including subway trains stuck in tunnels for an hour or more. In April, a power outage backed up trains around the city and closed a key Manhattan station for 12 hours.
Commuter railroads also have had problems. A report this month found rush hour cancellations and delays on the Long Island Rail Road at the highest level in 10 years.
(This story has been edited for length.)
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