At least 64 people were killed and a further 80 injured – with the toll likely to rise – when two high-speed trains collided in Spain on Wednesday, the second deadly accident in less than a year on the line connecting Madrid to the southern Andalusia region, regional authorities said.
Footage from regional Castilla-La Mancha Television showed a derailed train with at least one carriage remaining on an elevated section of track while twisted metal, broken panels and wreckage could be seen strewn across an embankment beneath the line.
Miguel, a passenger travelling with several colleagues in the rear car of one of the trains, described to COPE radio the moment of the accident.
“We heard a massive roar, a truly enormous thud that went on for 10 seconds, as if the train were about to derail. Through
the right-hand window, we could see a wrecked train – I imagine it must have been the other one,” he said.
Rail operator Adif detailed that the incident occurred between the towns of Mora and Orgaz.
“Traffic on the Madrid-Andalusia high-speed rail line has been suspended following a rear-end collision between two trains,” Adif said in a message posted on X.
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Castilla-la Mancha regional government said the death toll had risen to 31 from 10 after earlier warning it could rise.
“The information we are receiving is not good at all. There are at least 10 dead and it is possible that the number will increase,” Esther Padilla, spokeswoman for the government of central region, Castilla-La Mancha, told local media, CMM.
Padilla told state broadcaster TVE that the accident involved two high-speed trains heading in the same direction from Madrid to Seville and that one ran into the tail of the other while it was stopped, knocking two of its cars off the track. She added that the cause of the crash was not known.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a post on X he was “shocked by the serious train accident in Toledo” and expressed his “affection, solidarity and support to all the victims and their families”.
A Renfe and an Iryo train crashed just after 9 am (0800 GMT), causing two Iryo wagons to derail, a government spokesperson for the Castilla La Mancha region said, adding that the cause and number of injuries were still being determined.
Padilla noted that 397 passengers were aboard the RENFE train and 147 passengers on the IRYO train.
Manuel Galan, the mayor of Urda near the central city of Toledo, said he had been asked by emergency services to prepare a sports hall to accommodate the injured.
The prime minister’s agenda, published on the Spanish government’s website, has been cleared for the day. The opposition People’s Party has also cancelled all campaign events, a spokesperson said.
The collision comes nine months after an accident between high-speed trains belonging to the same operators on the same line that killed 46 people.
That crash in January, which occurred after a train derailed and smashed into an oncoming train near Adamuz, in Cordoba province, triggered a debate about the level of investment in railway maintenance in recent years.
(FRANCE 24 with AP, Reuters)
This story originally appeared on France24
