ADAMUZ – Officials in Spain said the death toll from a high-speed train collision in the south of the country, currently at 39, could rise further, with rescuers at work on the mangled wreckage. It is already Spain’s deadliest train accident since 2013, when 80 people died after a train veered off a curved section of track outside the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.
The crash happened late Sunday when a train operated by rail company Iryo travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed near Adamuz in Andalucia.
It crossed onto the other track, where it crashed into an oncoming train, which also derailed.
The interior ministry said 39 people died. Over 120 people were injured, with 48, including five children, still in hospital, regional emergency services said. Of those, 12 were in intensive care.
Heavy machinery was being deployed to lift the most severely damaged train carriages, the head of the regional government of Andalucia, Juan Manuel Moreno told reporters.
“Unfortunately, it is quite possible that additional victims will be found beneath the twisted wreckage. The goal is to identify the victims as quickly as possible,” he added.
The cause of the derailment was not yet known.
Unlike the 2013 accident, the derailment occurred on a straight section of track, and the trains were travelling within the speed limit, officials said.
transport minister Oscar Puente said the first train to derail was “practically new” and the section of the track where the disaster happened had been recently renovated, making the accident “extremely strange”.
Train operator Iryo said the locomotive was built in 2022 and last inspected just three days before the accident. It said it “veered onto the adjacent track for still unknown reasons”.
The company said around 300 people were on board its service from the Andalusian city of Malaga to the capital, Madrid.
Renfe, the operator of the second train travelling to the southern city of Huelva, said it was carrying 184 passengers.
Human error has “been practically ruled out,” Renfe president Alvaro Fernandez Heredia told Spanish public radio RNE.
– Nampa/AFP
