At least 68 people were killed and dozens more injured on Wednesday when two high-speed trains collided south of Madrid, according to the BBC. The death toll climbed from an earlier figure of 64 as rescue teams kept searching the wreckage into the night.
The crash happened shortly before 9 a.m. local time (08:00 GMT), an emergency services spokesperson told Agence France-Presse. The regional president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, announced the revised toll at the scene and warned it could rise further. "We do not know whether another body might be found when the carriages are moved," he told reporters, as reported by the BBC.
Why it matters
The collision is among the deadliest rail accidents in Europe this century, and it comes in the same year as another fatal high-speed crash in Spain. In January, 46 people died when two high-speed trains collided, and the BBC reports that the preliminary findings from Wednesday's investigation are likely to renew questions about the safety of Spain's rail network.
The political weight is immediate. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who is seeking a new term in elections scheduled for next month, declared three days of official mourning starting Thursday and promised a full inquiry. He described the occurrence of two high-speed train accidents within a single year as unacceptable and pledged to take every step needed to strengthen rail safety and rebuild passengers' confidence.
What the transport minister said
Transport Minister Óscar Puente said a failure in the automatic control system affected 69 kilometres of track and automatically halted every train running at the time. According to the BBC's account of his remarks, the decision to restart services before the system was brought back online came from the control centre, which he said acted in circumstances that cannot be explained.
Puente said a Renfe train, belonging to the national operator, resumed its journey and travelled 25 kilometres before striking a stationary train operated by the private company Iryo. He put the speed of the impact at possibly 200 kilometres per hour. He added that the Renfe train was allowed to continue even though a red warning signal was still showing, and that the control centre had enough time to catch and correct the error but did not.
Renfe said its train moved on instructions it received automatically from the control centre before the collision with the Iryo train, which had stopped for reasons that have not yet been established. The operator said the investigation will determine the precise sequence of events and the conditions under which the trains were moving.
Sánchez said early indications suggest Wednesday's crash is not linked to the January collision, though he stressed that establishing the causes is a matter for the investigators.
Rescue work through the night
Emergency crews worked past nightfall in cold weather, with fears that more victims remained trapped in the wreckage. A spokesperson said fire brigades, three helicopters and two mobile intensive care units were among the resources deployed.
AFP journalists at the scene saw one carriage driven into the other, with other carriages and twisted metal scattered down an embankment beside the track. Teams used drones, floodlights and cranes to lift sections of debris, and Reuters footage showed rescuers working among the crushed carriages as two cranes removed wreckage and one casualty was carried away.
Manuel Galán, the mayor of Orda, told the Spanish public broadcaster TVE that two trains had collided and that there were injured people. King Felipe VI, speaking in the Valencia region, described the collision as a dreadful accident and expressed deep sorrow and solidarity with the victims and their families. He said he intended to return to follow the emergency response and learn more details.
Adif, the state rail infrastructure manager, confirmed the collision in a social media post and said services were suspended on the high-speed line linking Madrid with the south of the country. Renfe has stopped selling tickets on the high-speed corridor between Madrid and Andalusia until 13 December.
Condolences from abroad
The crash drew messages of condolence from outside Spain. Saudi Arabia's King Salman sent his condolences to the Spanish monarch over the victims, according to the Saudi Press Agency, and the kingdom's foreign minister conveyed his government's sympathies to his Spanish counterpart, the Medina newspaper reported. Saudi football authorities postponed King's Cup matches because of the collision, Al Arabiya reported.
What happens next depends on the inquiry. Investigators must establish why the control centre cleared a train to run while the signalling system was still down, and whether negligence or a safety-system failure played a part, as Sánchez has said will be determined. The answers will shape both the election campaign and the case for changes to how Spain's high-speed network is operated.
