SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Two people were killed Tuesday in separate train collisions in the first two fatalities recorded this year in the northeast U.S. state of Washington, a railway spokesman said.

Spokesman Gus Melonas of BNSF Railway, one of the largest freight railroad networks in North America, was quoted by local media as saying that an elderly man was hit by a freight train traveling at about 32 km at a tunnel in downtown Seattle, the largest city in Washington state.

The crew of the train, which was running from Seattle to Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois, sounded the horn and applied the emergency brake when the old man was spotted "waving his arms" and buckled down in front of the train, Melonas said.

The train failed to stop to avoid the tragedy, he added.

The incident forced all traffic through the tunnel to be closed for five hours on Tuesday morning.

In another accident, a freight train heading from Everett to Chicago struck a person who was on the rails in Snohomish County, the third-most populous county in Washington.

The victim was thrown into a nearby body of water after he was hit by the train, although its crew applied the emergency brake, Melonas said.

The two incidents happened, coincidentally, within 10 minutes of each other.

Last year saw the second highest number of train fatalities in 25 years in Washington state as 23 people lost their lives in rail-related accidents, Melonas said.