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Missouri Train Collision Injures 7, Collapses Overpass

Two freight trains collided in Scott County, Mo., early Saturday morning, leaving seven injured and collapsing an overpass.

KMOV-TV reports:

"Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter says a Union Pacific train t-boned a Burlington Northern train that had just made it through an intersection.

"The collision caused one of the trains to derail and hit a pillar under the overpass causing it to collapse. At least a dozen train cars derailed.

"Walter says two vehicles were on the overpass when it collapsed. Three people in one vehicle and two people in another vehicle were taken to a nearby hospital with arm and ankle fractures."

Reuters reports the train engines caught fire after a disel fuel leak, but firefighters were able to extinguish it.

"The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team to investigate the collision and bridge collapse," CNN reports.

Of course, this news comesjust days after a bridge collapsed in Washington state, plunging two vehicles into a river and injuring three people.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.

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