What we know about Spain’s second high-speed rail tragedy this year

At slightest 68 radical were killed and astir 80 injured erstwhile a high-speed bid ploughed into the backmost of a stationary bid successful cardinal Spain connected Wednesday.

The crash, conscionable earlier 9am (08:00 GMT) adjacent Urda, a municipality southbound of Madrid, is Spain’s 2nd deadly high-speed obstruction catastrophe successful little than a year, and comes conscionable weeks earlier nationalist elections.

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The authorities person blamed an “inexplicable” bid fixed by a obstruction power centre that allowed 1 of the trains to resume mean velocity pursuing a signalling failure.

Here is what we cognize astir the crash:

What happened and where?

The moving bid was tally by Renfe, Spain’s state-owned obstruction company. It deed the rear of a stalled bid operated by Iryo, a backstage subordinate which entered the country’s high-speed railway work marketplace successful 2022.

Both trains were travelling from Madrid to Seville. The Renfe bid was carrying 397 radical and the Iryo bid 147, according to the authorities of Castilla-La Mancha, the cardinal portion wherever the clang happened.

The trains collided connected a raised conception of way betwixt Urda and the neighbouring municipality of Los Yebenes, adjacent the past metropolis of Toledo.

Two of the Iryo train’s carriages derailed and fell down the embankment during the collision, determination officials and exigency sources quoted by Spanish paper El Pais said.

The toll is the highest successful a European obstruction mishap since a 2013 derailment successful the northwestern Spanish metropolis of Santiago de Compostela killed 80 people.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the tract connected Wednesday and declared 3 days of nationalist mourning, starting connected Thursday.

He pledged to get to the bottommost of the crash, saying immoderate negligence would travel to airy and immoderate strategy failures would beryllium met with a beardown response.

What bash we cognize astir the dormant and injured?

At slightest 68 radical were killed successful the clang and astir 80 were injured, 50 of them earnestly and 15 critically, said Emiliano Garcia-Page, president of the Castilla-La Mancha determination government.

The astir earnestly injured radical were taken to hospitals successful the portion and successful Madrid, the capital. Others were assessed astatine a sports hallway adjacent the clang site, wherever exigency teams sorted them by the severity of their injuries earlier sending them location oregon to hospital.

Survivors treated adjacent the country had caput wounds, facial swelling and bloodied clothing, and galore were dazed, according to section media reports.

Juan Quesada, 65, who was travelling connected the Renfe bid to Seville for work, suffered a caput injury. “A tremendous interaction and truthful overmuch noise, and everyone was coming astatine you,” helium told El Pais.

A section who contributed to supplying the makeshift aesculapian centre told the insubstantial the country was “like a fearfulness movie”.

Emergency crews proceed to wide the wreckage of the 2 trains and hunt for victims trapped nether the rubble. Fifty-two bodies person been recovered truthful far.

Spain’s Civil Guard sent a catastrophe probe squad to the site, with grounds from the tract being collected.

What caused the collision betwixt the trains?

At astir 8:30am (07:30 GMT), a machine nonaccomplishment knocked retired LZB, the main signalling strategy that automatically keeps trains connected the enactment a harmless region apart, Transport Minister Oscar Puente said.

As a result, astir six trains connected a 63km (39-mile) agelong stopped automatically, including the Iryo and Renfe trains. The Renfe bid had been moving astir 25km (15.5 miles) down the Iryo bid connected the aforesaid track.

Control of those trains past passed to a centre successful Madrid tally by Adif, the authorities institution that manages Spain’s obstruction infrastructure. Its controllers had to determine erstwhile and however accelerated each bid could determination again.

At 8:36am, controllers cleared the Renfe bid to resume moving astatine its mean speed, according to the preliminary probe by El Pais that cites bid information and recordings of calls with controllers.

The Iryo bid was fixed the aforesaid bid astatine 8:41am but could not get moving. At 8:48am, its operator told controllers it was inactive stalled.

By then, the Renfe bid had sped up to much than 200km/h (124mph). At 8:53am, it smashed into the stalled Iryo train.

A motortruck crane operates astatine the tract of the bid clang [Javier Soriano/AFP]

Was quality mistake oregon a signalling nonaccomplishment responsible?

Puente has said the clang was caused by what helium called an “inexplicable” bid from the power centre aft the information strategy failed. He said the bid drivers and engineers were not to blame.

In his view, the Renfe bid should ne'er person been allowed to determination portion a halt awesome was inactive showing, oregon should astatine slightest person been instructed to proceed slowly.

Spain’s Transport Minister Oscar Puente speaks to the media aft the collision [Juan Barbosa/Reuters]

That is what Spain’s obstruction rules usually require. When the automatic information strategy LZB goes down, trains whitethorn lone determination again astatine up to 40km/h (25mph), dilatory capable for the operator to spot an obstacle and halt successful time.

A backup strategy does instrumentality over, but it detects signals lone astatine acceptable points on the way to find wherever each bid is, alternatively than monitoring the enactment continuously.

Rail technologist Jose Luis Gonzalez Vallve told the Spanish quality bureau EFE that the main system, which detects a bid stopped up and tin use brakes automatically, would person prevented the clang had it been working.

According to El Pais, determination was besides nary awesome beside the way betwixt the 2 trains that could person stopped the Renfe train, leaving the controllers’ instructions arsenic the lone safeguard.

The 2 bid companies person fixed their ain accounts. Renfe said its bid moved arsenic instructed. Sources adjacent to Iryo told EFE its bid had stopped astatine a awesome and called controllers, arsenic the rules require.

Adif has not yet identified the constituent of nonaccomplishment astatine its power centre, sources astatine the institution told EFE.

Andalusian determination officials clasp a infinitesimal of soundlessness for the victims of the collision [Marcelo Del Pozo/Reuters]

How person bid services been affected?

Adif suspended high-speed bid services betwixt Madrid and the confederate portion of Andalusia aft the crash, though trains are inactive moving betwixt Madrid and the adjacent metropolis of Toledo, and betwixt the confederate cities of Malaga and Seville.

Renfe has suspended summons income connected the Madrid-Andalusia high-speed corridor until December 13, with an alternative work betwixt Madrid and Andalusia starting from Friday.

Why has Spain suffered 2 deadly high-speed crashes this year?

On January 18, a high-speed bid derailed adjacent the confederate municipality of Adamuz, successful Cordoba province, and deed an oncoming train, sidesplitting 46 people. That clang besides progressive Renfe and Iryo trains connected the aforesaid line.

Sanchez, who leads the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), said the causes of the 2 crashes appeared unrelated, but that 2 high-speed obstruction accidents successful 1 twelvemonth were “unacceptable for a state similar Spain”.

The Madrid-Seville enactment is Spain’s lone high-speed way inactive utilizing LZB, which dates from the line’s opening successful 1992 and which the authorities is looking to update.

Adif was awarded a 52-month declaration successful 2021 to regenerate it with the European Union’s modular signalling system, but the enactment is inactive nether way.

Spain has besides seen 2 lower-speed bid crashes this year, with 1 idiosyncratic killed successful each and galore others injured.

Aftermath of the deadly bid clang successful Cordoba successful January 2026 [Susana Vera/Reuters]

What astir the governmental fallout?

With elections conscionable astir the corner, the clang has taken connected a governmental magnitude successful Spain.

On Wednesday evening, 1,500 radical gathered successful beforehand of the Ministry of Transport successful a protestation organised by right-wing younker groups. They called connected Puente to resign and clashed with police.

Sanchez has cancelled upcoming run rallies to woody with the crisis.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, who heads the main absorption People’s Party (PP), cancelled run events during the mourning play and called for a afloat investigation.

“This is the infinitesimal to respect the dead, the injured and their families,” helium said. The PP holds a flimsy pb implicit the ruling PSOE successful polls.

By contrast, Santiago Abascal, person of the far-right absorption enactment Vox, has not suspended run activities. Instead, helium has adopted fiery rhetoric successful effect to the incident, labelling the authorities “a transgression organisation” and promising to instrumentality it to court.