Spain has entered a three-day period of national mourning following a devastating train collision that resulted in at least 68 fatalities and dozens of injuries, marking one of the deadliest rail disasters in recent European history. Emergency crews worked through the night to recover victims from the wreckage of two trains.
Officials are investigating the cause of the incident, which occurred when a train traveling from Madrid to Seville collided with a stationary train on Wednesday morning. The force of the impact caused several carriages to derail, with some falling down an embankment. Audio recordings between train controllers in Madrid and the drivers of the involved trains are a key focus of the investigation. Preliminary reports suggest that one high-speed train may have been given clearance to proceed at normal speed despite another train ahead of it being stalled.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed the nation's grief, stating, "The whole of Spain is grieving... lives have been shattered, families have been torn apart, the pain is immense." Hundreds of personnel, including those utilizing drones and helicopters, have been deployed to the disaster site in Urda, Toledo, to aid in recovery efforts and the identification of victims.
The stationary train, operated by private rail company Iryo, was carrying 147 passengers. Spain's transport minister, Óscar Puente, indicated that the train had stopped due to a computer failure. He noted that a control center in Madrid assumed operational control but allegedly made an "inexplicable" decision to allow trains to move again without imposing speed restrictions.
This crash is the second major rail disaster in Spain this year. In January, 46 people died in a high-speed derailment near Córdoba, on the same line as Wednesday's accident but further south. Sánchez described the situation as "unacceptable."
In the wake of the disaster, most political parties suspended campaigning for upcoming elections. The far-right party Vox, however, criticized what its leader Santiago Abascal called attempts to "use mourning to silence criticism" of the country's rail infrastructure. On Wednesday night, a protest of approximately 1,500 people gathered outside the Spanish Transport Ministry in Madrid, with some demonstrators calling for the resignations of Sánchez and Puente. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd after objects were thrown.
The Spanish Union of Railway Drivers (Semaf) announced that a planned strike for Thursday would proceed, stating the action was "in defence of railway safety."
The Spanish Civil Guard has established bureaus in Madrid, Toledo, Seville, and Córdoba to manage reports of missing persons and assist in identifying victims, prioritizing the collection of DNA samples to locate relatives.
The European Union has shown solidarity, with flags flying at half-mast in Brussels. Wednesday's collision is the deadliest rail incident in Spain since 2013, when 80 people died near Santiago de Compostela.