by KERRY BURKE, ROBERT F. MOORE, JIMMY VIELKIND and PETE DONOHUE DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Thousands of subway riders had to be plucked from two trains stalled on the Manhattan Bridge at the height of rush hour last night as smoke from a tunnel track fire wafted into the packed, steamy cars. Some of the 4,000 passengers caught in the drama high above the East River were briefly gripped by terror fears as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in unair-conditioned cars amid 80-plus degree temperatures. Many riders were trapped for more than an hour before firefighters and other rescuers, using wooden planks and ladders, gingerly escorted them to the span's roadbed. "Oh, my God, it was so scary," Martha Calle, 31, who was stuck on a Brooklyn-bound D train. "It was like more than a half hour with no information, so I worried that it might be, like, terrorists. No information. No air conditioning. "It was like hell." Officials were investigating the cause of the fire, which tied up traffic and delayed service on several lines for more than three hours. But early signs pointed to a tunnel trash blaze - in a subterranean homeless encampment - in Brooklyn. Some 25 passengers and firefighters suffered smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion, and 13 had to be treated at area hospitals. None of the injuries was life-threatening, but for many it was a harrowing experience. Fire officials said the first report of trouble came at 6:15 p.m. with calls about smoke billowing into the DeKalb Ave. station, the first Brooklyn stop for southbound trains heading over the bridge from Manhattan. The first three cars of a 10-car B train had entered the tunnel leading from the bridge to DeKalb Ave. when power was cut to the third rail. A D train froze behind the B and became stuck midspan. Firefighters and police raced to the scene, cutting through the fence along the tracks on the lower level of the bridge where the trains sat, and ushering people through to the middle lane normally used by cars. Among those rescued through the gap was a toddler passed through to an Emergency Medical Service worker. Other passengers were placed on gurneys and rolled along the roadbed to waiting ambulances. "It was very hot... you can't imagine," Mohammed Saleem, 27, a restaurant manager who was on the B train, said. "You couldn't breathe." Susan Fox, 56, who also was on the B train, said it was "like an oven in there." Assistant Fire Chief James Esposito said a fire erupted in the tunnel between the DeKalb Ave. station and the bridge. Although the cause was under investigation, he noted the blaze started near an apparent homeless encampment. "The cause of the fire looks accidental... there was no malicious intent," he said. Riders kept their cool - and kept in touch with loved ones and authorities by cell phone. "Everyone pretty much stayed calm," said D train rider Christine LaRubio, 31. "I called my husband to tell him what happened and he said, 'I'm on the train, too!' He was about five cars behind me," said LaRubio, who works at Princeton Review. She was later reunited with husband, Brad Silberberg, 32, who shrugged off the ordeal. "I'm fine," said Silberberg, a sales manager. "As a New Yorker, I'm used to it."
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