A woman has died and 84 people have been hospitalized after one of Washington, D.C.'s busiest metro stations filled up with smoke on Monday afternoon, creating what authorities described as a "mass casualty" incident.
The heavy smoke began pouring out of L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station around 3 p.m. after a disabled train became trapped inside an underground tunnel, D.C. Fire and EMS reported. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating what caused the smoke, a WMATA spokeswoman told the New York Daily News.
At least 83 people were taken to area hospitals for treatment, including a firefighter, and two were critically injured, authorities said. Hundreds others were forced to evacuate the metro station during Monday's afternoon rush hour.
"We have one fatality, a woman who was in distress on the train, which I'm very sorry to report," Metro General Manager and CEO Richard Sarles said at a press briefing.
Shortly before 3:30 p.m. on Monday, a Virginia-bound Yellow Line train that had just departed the L'Enfant Plaza station unexpectedly came to a halt 800 yards beyond the platform and began to fill with smoke, officials said.
Firefighters were able to finally rescue more than 200 riders after the passengers had been stuck in the subway for more than an hour. But during that time, some travelers began to choke as the smoke filled the cars, while others lost consciousness, passengers told the Washington Post.
"People could barely breathe," passenger Denzel Hatch told NBC Washington. "They had to evacuate us through the tunnel and walk back through the front. No electricity, no visibility, nothing. Couldn't see anything at first."
Passenger Saleh Damiger was quoted by the newspaper as saying that people were choking and yelling aboard the train. "It was a lot of smoke," she said. "We couldn't see each other. ... We felt like we were almost going to die."
The majority of people admitted to hospitals were suffering from smoke inhalation, according to hospital officials at Medstar Washington Hospital Center and George Washington University Hospital.
An "electrical arcing event" had occurred approximately 1,100 feet in front of the train, which refers to what happens when water hits an electrified third rail and sometimes generates smoke, NTSB officials said at a news conference late Monday night. Since there was between half an inch and an inch of water on the ground next to the third rail, that could be an explanation for the source of the smoke.
However, it remains unclear on why the train came to a sudden stop, the Associated Press reported.
"We are all saddened by today's fatality aboard the Metrorail, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the passenger who passed away," D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement released later Monday night. "I have been in contact with the WMATA leadership, and we will continue to keep the District's resources available in the aftermath of the incident."
Washington D.C.'s Metrorail is the U.S.'s second busiest mass transit system after New York City.
