24 injured in a collision between two subway trains in New York outside

A subway train carrying 300 passengers near the 96th Street station at around 3 p.m. local time collided with another out-of-service subway car carrying only four subway employees. Authorities said the collision and subsequent derailment caused a major traffic jam in the middle of the day that affected all of Manhattan.

“It was really scary,” a 19-year-old passenger heading home in Brooklyn told the New York Daily News. “All kinds of things flew through the air. My head hit first the window of the door and then the pillar.”

A police spokesman said at a press conference: “Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.” “But it's clearly not the intention for two trains to collide. We'll get to the bottom of this.”

With more than a thousand kilometers of tracks and more than 470 stations, the New York subway network is not only one of the largest in the world, but also one of the oldest. However, accidents are fairly rare.

The investigation must clarify whether there was human error. Preliminary investigation results do not indicate a defect in the equipment. New York's aging subway system has suffered frequent power outages, signal problems and other disruptions in recent years.