Shock and grief swept Spain on Thursday as the country entered three days of mourning after a high-speed rail collision — the second such crash this year — left 68 people dead and dozens more injured, with families scrambling for information about missing relatives.
The disaster, one of Europe’s deadliest train accidents of the century, has reignited scrutiny of safety on Spain’s rail network after the transport minister pointed to an “error” and described the conditions surrounding the crash as “inexplicable.”
The collision occurred yesterday morning in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha, when a high-speed service operated by state rail company Renfe slammed into the rear of a stationary train run by private Spanish operator Iryo.
As darkness fell, emergency crews continued working through the twisted wreckage on the vital route connecting Madrid with the southern city of Seville, using cranes to lift mangled sections of metal in the search for additional victims.
Josimar Medina, 31, a Peruvian visiting Spain on holiday with his girlfriend, said he had been asleep aboard the Renfe train when the impact threw him from his berth. “I woke up and I was in the air,” he said.
Another survivor, Pablo Mejia, 42, said he suffered head injuries but believes a last-second decision to switch seats spared his life.
With blood on his grey jumper and a battered suitcase in hand, he described the aftermath: “a very strong hit … a lot of people on the floor, on top of each other, seats ripped out, suitcases, a lot of chaos”.
“I think I’ve been born again,” he said.
Two people wait for updates outside a centre for relatives of missing victims
‘Long and hard hours’
In the nearby village of Urda, about 130km south of Madrid, authorities have converted a school into a centre where relatives can seek updates and report missing loved ones.
Red Cross teams were on hand to support families arriving in groups — some in tears — as police and journalists from around the world gathered nearby.
Red Cross psychologist Carmen Garcia warned that “long and hard hours” lay ahead, stressing that each person processes trauma differently.
“We have people who are in shock, who haven’t taken on board what has happened, angry people, sad, worried people. The grieving will be complicated.”
To speed identification efforts, the Civil Guard has opened four offices in Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba and Seville where relatives can provide DNA samples and assist with identifying those still unaccounted for.
Officials have also established blood donation points across Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid.
Jose Miguel Fernandez, the parish priest in Urda, joined emergency responders in providing comfort to families as they waited for news.
“What matters most is being with the victims’ relatives, that they feel the closeness, because words at a time like this are pointless, but a hug helps,” he said.
Mr Fernandez said that when he hurried to the crash site, he was met by what he called “an image of desolation, despair, uncertainty, death”.
‘Inexplicable circumstances’
Spain’s Transport Minister Oscar Puente said yesterday that an automatic control system failed along 69km of track, forcing trains in the area to stop.
Despite the breakdown, the control centre chose to “resume traffic in circumstances that, from our point of view, are inexplicable,” Mr Puente said. The Renfe train then travelled 25km before crashing into the Iryo train.
The control centre “had more than enough time to verify the error and they did not fix it,” he added.
The crash follows another high-speed rail tragedy in January, when two trains collided in the southern region of Andalusia after one derailed and crossed onto an adjacent track, killing 46 people.
That investigation remains ongoing, but the left-wing government has already faced sharp criticism over how it runs Spain’s rail system.
The latest calamity comes just a month before Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez attempts to defy unfavourable polling and secure an extension of his eight-year tenure in an early general election scheduled for 29 November.
