Urda, Oct 28: One high-speed Spanish train slammed into another that had stopped on the tracks Wednesday, killing at least 68 people and shredding carriages in the country’s second deadly rail collision this year.
The regional government for Castilla La Mancha confirmed the death toll and said another 58 people needed medical treatment in hospital. Rescue workers continue to search in the wreckage for survivors and bodies.
The accident comes with memories still fresh of another crash between high-speed trains in southern Spain in January involving trains from the same two companies.
Spain’s rail system operator ADIF said the crash occurred Wednesday morning in the province of Toledo, involving two high-speed trains carrying hundreds of passengers and heading in the same direction from the capital Madrid to Seville in southwestern Spain.
One train, run by the state-owned RENFE company, ran into the tail of the other train owned by private company IRYO that had stopped, knocking two of its cars off the track in a rural area between two villages.
David Gómez, a construction worker, was working with his brother and another colleague nearby when they heard the crash and ran to help, he told the newspaper El País.
“People were trying to get out through the windows … We cut through some fences to access the area and treated people with the first-aid kits we had brought,” until emergency services arrived, he said. “As I was trying to pull a young woman out, there was a piece of a leg.”
Rail service was suspended between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia.
Until this year, there had been no fatal crash on Spain’s dedicated high-speed lines since the network opened in 1992. It was a source of national pride.
Transport minister says crash was due to inexplicable’ decision
Spain’s Transport Minister Oscar Puente said that the accident was caused by what he called the “inexplicable” order from a central command centre for Spain’s trains after a security system had failed. He said the train engineers were not to blame.
Puente said that at 8:30 am the security system on a stretch of 63 kilometres (39 miles) stopped working due to a computer malfunction, causing all trains on that stretch to stop. But the central command told the RENFE train to start running again without any speed restrictions, and it ended up colliding with the stopped IRYO train at 8:53 am.
Puente said that the train should never have been told to start moving again since there was still a “stop signal” active that line. And if it had, at least it should have been told to go at reduced speed.
Puente said they were still studying information to see how fast the train was going, but it could have been at 200 kph (124 mph) for that stretch of the track.
“I am not attributing responsibility to anyone, I am just stating the facts,” Puente said.
Everything went flying when the trains collided, a passenger said
The crash, which occurred in a flat stretch surrounded by olive fields in between the towns of Urda and Los Yébenes, left one car torn into bits of metal and other material, scattering debris down a gravel slope.
Spanish Health Minister Mónica García said that emergency workers were focusing on rescuing survivors and bodies from the two most damaged train cars. She said that the injured are being sent to different hospitals in the area.
“It was a high-speed impact, so we are expecting this to be a tragedy,” García said.
Passenger Ignacio Relaño was traveling on the RENFE train. He told state broadcaster TVE that the train had stopped momentarily on the line before it started again and then crashed into the IRYO.
“We all felt the train abruptly slowing down and then the impact,” he said. “The car leaned to one side like it was about to tip over. I hit my nose, everything went flying, luggage, cell phones. Everything shook.”
Another passenger recounted to Cadena Ser radio how she felt the train slam on the brakes and was thrown forward in her seat, breaking the small table in front of her. She said she saw body parts and trapped people covered in blood. (AP)
