High-speed train collision in Spain claims 68 lives

URDA (Spain): A high-speed train slammed into another that had stopped on the tracks in Spain Wednesday, killing at least 68 people and injuring dozens in the second deadly rail collision this year.

The regional government of Castilla La Mancha confirmed the death toll and said another 58 people were receiving medical treatment at hospitals. Rescue workers searched the wreckage through the day for survivors and bodies.

The collision came just nine months after another deadly crash involving high-speed trains operated by the same two companies in southern Spain in January.

“Today all of Spain is grieving,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said from the crash site, where he announced that his government would declare three days of national mourning.

Sánchez called for increased safety measures to restore confidence in a high-speed rail system that was once a source of national pride.

“It is unacceptable for a country like Spain to suffer two high-speed rail accidents in the same year,” said Sánchez, who faces a national election on November 29.

Spain’s rail system operator ADIF said the crash occurred Wednesday morning in the central province of Toledo, involving two high-speed trains carrying hundreds of passengers and heading south in the same direction from Madrid to Seville.

A train operated by the state-owned RENFE company struck the rear of another train operated by private company IRYO that was stopped. The collision derailed two carriages on the tail of the IRYO train and the front of the RENFE train.

Samy Paul, a British tourist, described the shock of the impact to The Associated Press after being rescued from the RENFE train.

“Suddenly, everything started falling apart. Bang! We fell down,” he said. “We realized carriage two, carriage one, all gone, all smashed. There was blood all over.”

Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente said that the crash was caused by what he called the “inexplicable” order from a central command center 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 a.m. the security system on a stretch of 63 kilometers 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 a.m.