NJ Transit Crash Sounded Like Bomb

NEW JERSEY - Horrifying train crash that took place this morning at New Jersey's (NJ) Hoboken Terminal has many recalling a similar incident involving a commuter train at the same station in 2011.

Today's crash left at least one person dead and scores injured, according to authorities. Witnesses said they saw the train was moving at an especially high rate of speed before it plowed into the bumper at the end of the tracks, bringing down part of the roof.

The witnesses describe the harrowing scene this morning after a New Jersey Transit commuter train crashed into a platform at Hoboken Terminal in northern New Jersey, killing at least one person and seriously injuring others.

Officials said at least 100 people were wounded in the crash. The train was traveling on the Pascack Valley line. It departed from Spring Valley, New York, at 7:23 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Hoboken of 8:38 a.m. The train, carrying 250 people, struck the terminal building on track 5 at approximately 8:45 a.m., according to NJ Transit officials.

Corey Futterman was riding in one of the last cars of the train but was not injured in the crash. He told ABC News that this was "something I've never seen before."

"We had just left Secaucus and that’s where about half or if not more than half of the train gets off the car to transfer to New York (Penn Station). We were approaching Hoboken and the train did not seem to be slowing down whatsoever and then all of a sudden everything just crashed and shook," Futterman said.

There was no indication that something was wrong before the crash, according to Futterman.

"We were just going a little quicker than expected," he said. "We were not slowing too much."

Futterman said his train car was not severely damaged in the crash.

"But when you got out, I immediately saw like the roof caved in and the car was on top of the platform and it was wires everywhere and total destruction inside. And chaos," he told ABC News.

"People were freaking out and crying. People’s faces were bloody."

William Blaine, a freight engineer, said he was at the terminal when the accident happened. He walked past track 5 to get coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts. Seconds later, he heard a "kaboom, and everything just went down. Your body just shook."

"It sounded like a bomb. And I'm sure that's probably what people were thinking because this is what it sounded like.," Blaine told ABC News.

Blaine said he ran back out to the track to see what the commotion was.

"I looked and I just saw people on the ground, on the floor. That’s when I saw a deceased person there. It hurt me very much," he said.

Blaine, who has worked for the Norfolk Southern Railway for the past 17 years, said he suspects the train was coming into the station at high speed, given the amount of wreckage.

"A hit like that, it had to be," he said. "(The train) wasn’t even into the platform. It was on top of the platform."

Michael Larson, a NJ Transit worker, told ABC News station WABC in New York that he was about 30 feet away from the crash when it occurred. "I couldn’t believe what I was seeing," he said.

"It was initially just a horrendous, horrendous exploding noise,” Larsen recalled, adding that he saw the train coming in "at a high rate of speed."

“It went over the bumper block basically through the air, traveled about another 40 feet, came to a rest when it hit the wall of the waiting room,” Larson said.

"The second half of the first car was completely destroyed to where they were crawling on their hands and knees," he added.

Another witness, who was identified only as Jamie, described the moments after the crash to WABC.

"We're panicking, because I believe those people in the front were very badly injured. So they started yelling, because they saw the blood," she said, adding, "(the train) was super packed."