A fire broke out under a PATH commuter train on Monday morning in Jersey City, N.J., sending passengers to the hospital and causing panic during rush hour as people raced to escape flames and smoke.
The fire began shortly after 6 a.m. at the Newport PATH station in Jersey City. The fire ignited below one of the train cars, Port Authority officials said. They are investigating the cause of the flames.
Thirteen people were treated for smoke inhalation at the scene, officials said. Nine of them were hospitalized for further evaluation.
Video footage shared on social media shows passengers on the train begging the conductor to open the doors as the smoke crept closer, filling the car with a yellow haze. People can be heard encouraging each other to stay calm as flames flickered outside the windows, while they waited to get to safety.
When the doors finally opened, passengers fled onto the platform, with at least one person saying they had left a wallet on board in the rush to breathe clean air. Flames can be seen nearby, licking the sides of the train.
The fire caused service suspensions of the PATH lines that take passengers between Midtown Manhattan and Jersey City, and between the World Trade Center and Hoboken. Those lines were running again by 11 a.m., Port Authority officials said.
Passengers shared their accounts of the fire online, with one person reporting hearing a “loud explosion” right before it broke out.
“This was not just smoke,” said another, adding that the car “was literally in flames.”
The fire is only the latest in a string of transit snarls that has dogged New Jersey commuters this summer.
New Jersey Transit buses rear-ended each other in two separate collisions last month, both incidents between buses entering the ramp leading from the Lincoln Tunnel to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The two crashes left dozens hurt and caused major delays.
Also last month, flames engulfed a car in the Lincoln Tunnel, sending one person to the hospital and leaving commuters stuck in standstill traffic while they waited for the fire to be extinguished and the car to be cleared.
The summer got off to a rocky start when in May, N.J. Transit’s train drivers went on strike for the first time in decades. Rail service was suspended for four days and thousands of commuters were stranded.