At least 68 people have been killed and more than 100 injured after a high-speed train hit a stationary train in central Spain. The crash happened near the town of Urda, in Toledo province, on Wednesday morning.
A Renfe AVE train travelling from Madrid to Seville rear-ended an Iryo train that had stopped on the same track. The two trains were carrying 544 passengers between them. Officials say the death toll is still provisional and could rise.
What happened
The crash happened at about 8:53am on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line. The Renfe train, carrying 397 people, struck the back of the Iryo train, which had 147 passengers on board. Two rear carriages of the Iryo train came off the track and rolled down an embankment.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the scene and said the whole country was in mourning. Three days of national mourning have been declared.
A system failure, then a human error
Transport Minister Oscar Puente said the crash was caused by a computer failure followed by human error. At about 8:30am, a fault in the LZB safety system, which controls train speed and traffic, stopped six trains over a long stretch near Urda.
Control of traffic was then handed to the ADIF control centre at Madrid’s Atocha station. The centre cleared the Renfe train to resume running at normal speed, even though the rules after such a failure say trains must run at no more than 40 kilometres per hour, slow enough to stop short of anything ahead. The train travelled about 25 kilometres at high speed before hitting the Iryo train. Puente called the decision to clear it “inexplicable”. The Guardia Civil has questioned the controller responsible.
Spain’s second deadly crash this year
This is the second deadly high-speed rail crash in Spain in nine months. In January, a crash at Adamuz in Andalusia killed 46 people and injured more than 150. Wednesday’s crash is Spain’s deadliest rail disaster since 2013.
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