At least 68 killed in Spanish high-speed train crash

Sergi Forcada Freixas
Reporting from Urda

Spain’s high-speed rail network is the second largest in the world after China’s.

But this is the country’s second major high-speed rail disaster with multiple fatalities in less than a year, following the crash in Adamuz in January, in which 46 people were killed.

While most parties suspended campaigning today, and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and other political leaders travelled to the crash site, the political implications of the accident are likely to linger throughout the election campaign.

Sánchez has called a snap election for 29 November, hoping to turn the vote into something of a referendum on housing policy.

Many political analysts saw that as favourable terrain for the prime minister.

But a debate about the state of Spain’s infrastructure and the safety of its rail network could prove more challenging for Sánchez, who has been in power for the past eight years.

We're getting pictures through now of a protest outside the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility in Madrid.

Protesters are demanding accountability over the train crash, which killed at least 68 people and left dozens more injured.

Their banner criticises "criminals in power under the '78 regime" - a term used to refer to Spain's current political system, which emerged following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

Spanish trade union CSIF is demanding the resignation of Transport Minister Óscar Puente following today's high-speed train collision.

In a statement, it accuses Puente of "scapegoating" a traffic manager during his press conference earlier today instead of "taking responsibility".

"The minister has shirked all responsibility despite the initial computer system failure that triggered the events," CSIF adds.

Earlier, we brought you comments from the transport minister in which he said it was "inexplicable" that a control centre allowed the high-speed train to start moving again after a computer failure, when another train was stationary on the tracks further ahead.

Salvador Arriza, 62, says that the fact that he was travelling in the opposite direction to the train he was on saved him from being thrown out, like other passengers.

"I was very close to the door, but [other passengers] were breaking the windows to be able to get out," he tells Reuters.

The 62-year-old describes scenes of wreckage, with seats ripped out through the carriage where he was sitting near the back of the high-speed Renfe train.

"Some people practically couldn't move because they were trapped amongst the seats," he says.

Rafael Barceló was travelling in the high-speed AVE train that crashed.

He says he was in the cafeteria car and that may have saved him and a friend from suffering the worst of the impact.

“We were having breakfast, having a coffee and we felt a huge impact, we were all thrown into the air," he tells Reuters, with a visible wound on his forehead.

"I am reasonably OK, my friend is quite worse.”

Their seats were in car number seven, "which is the one with more victims and the one most destroyed," Barceló says.

"I at least counted eight victims in that coach."

As we've just reported, rescue personnel are working into the night at the scene of the crash near Spain's capital of Madrid.

In its most recent update on social media, Spain's interior ministry says there are 102 people from Spain General Secretariat for Civil Protection and Emergencies are on site.

A further 422 personnel from the Guardia Civil are also assisting, along with three helicopters, and drones and dogs.

Nick Beake
Europe correspondent

The most significant information today has come from the Spanish transport minister who said that from his perspective - looking at the information available so far - this incident was due to human error.

He described a situation just before 09:00 local time this morning, where there had been a computer failure which had led to at least six services in the area being halted.

But then a decision was made to give the go-ahead to one of these high-speed trains to continue its journey, which led to the crash.

Spain's transport minister said this decision was "inexplicable" and there was no clear rationale why it was made.

One development that's being reported in the Spanish media is that the Guardia Civil have apparently been interviewing everyone who was in the main control centre in Atocha, in Madrid, at the time this decision was made to tell the high-speed train to continue its journey.

The train that was hit from behind was still stationary when the order was given to the other train to proceed.

According to regulations, under such circumstances, a train driver would be required to proceed at what is known as "sight speed" - about 40km/h (25mph), a speed that allows them to stop in time if they encounter an obstacle.

Officials will investigate what order the Renfe train got, if it was travelling at the usual speed for that section of track - "around 200km/h" according to the minister, and, more significantly, why did the operator not stop its journey when his screen would have displayed that another train on the same line was stationary.

Affected passengers were visibly angry.

"It isn't possible that our train was stopped for five or 10 minutes and that the other train wasn't told to stop," one of them said.

"How can this happen with the technology we have?"

• Read more: Bloodied, dazed and angry - how passengers' rail journey turned to disaster in Spain

The latest images from the crash site show a continued effort by emergency workers to clear up the wreckage.

Lights have been deployed as dusk falls, while a large crane is also at the scene.

Earlier, local authorities confirmed that the bodies of 68 victims had been recovered from the crash site.

Spain's Civil Guard says its "top priority" is to identify relatives of the train crash victims using DNA samples.

Four offices for relatives have been set up in Madrid and other parts of Spain, according to the force.

So far, Spanish authorities have confirmed 68 people died in the crash, with dozens more seriously injured.

Isabel Núñez is a local councillor in Urda, close to the crash site, who has been helping receive injured people at the town's sports hall.

She tells BBC Mundo that people with minor injuries, such as cuts or bruises, have been picked up by family members or transported back to where they live by bus.

Some people were "very dazed" and "were completely in shock" when they arrived, Isabel says, adding "many didn't even know which carriage they had been travelling in".

She goes on: "Urda’s two local police officers were among the first to arrive at the scene of the accident.

"This morning we have seen everything. A man arrived on a motorbike, completely disoriented, looking for his wife, who had been on the train. He was desperate.

"We also helped a man with a head wound who had left his carriage to stretch his legs and was saved because of that.

"His carriage was the one that caught fire and where most of the victims were. He was relieved and grateful to be alive, but deeply saddened by the whole situation."

European leaders have shared their condolences and willingness to support Spain following the train collision.

• European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen says her "heart goes out to the victims' families and loved ones. Today, Europe mourns with you"
• French President Emmanuel Macron says "our thoughts are with the victims, their families, to the many injured as well as to all the teams mobilise in the rescue operations"
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says her "thoughts and those of the government go out to the loved ones of the victims, the injured and all those working tirelessly in the rescue operations"
• UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has paid tribute when speaking to the House of Commons: "I have been in touch with Prime Minister Sanchez to relay our condolences and offer any support that we can"
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also given Ukraine's "condolences to everyone who lost loved ones"

Elizabeth Conway
BBC Sport Spanish football reporter in Madrid

I've just stepped outside in Madrid to find a queue of more than 100 people waiting to donate blood in the city centre.

The donation van is usually parked on Gran Vía, Madrid’s main shopping street, where there are normally only a handful of people waiting. I’ve never seen a queue anything like this before.

In coffee shops today, the train crash was all anyone seemed to be talking about.

There’s a real sense of shock and heartbreak across the city, with people sharing news and information about what’s happened on social media.

Due to the volume of donations, Madrid president Isabel Díaz Ayuso is asking others to "wait until tomorrow and the following days, when it will still be just as necessary".

Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez says the government is working "to clarify what happened, why this tragedy occurred". Here's what we know so far:

• A Spanish high-speed train collided with another train south of the capital Madrid, seemingly while one was stationary
• Transport Minister Óscar Puente says a computer failure led to the initial halting of six moving trains, including the two trains that subsequently collided
• "In the event of a system failure, the control centre takes over," Puente says
• However, for "inexplicable" reasons, the control centre decided to allow the high-speed train to move again, without any speed restrictions, before it hit the second train
• Sánchez references a deadly rail crash that killed 46 on the same line earlier this year, and says: "At the moment it looks like the causes behind both crashes have nothing in common"
• An investigation is under way

Guy Hedgecoe
Reporting from Urda

This tragedy comes just nine months after 46 people died in a rail collision on the same Madrid-Seville line.

That accident unleashed an intense debate about the safety of Spain's high-speed rail system, the largest in Europe and until recently the envy of many neighbouring countries.

It also piled pressure on the left-wing government of Pedro Sánchez, as many Spaniards wondered if his administration had under-invested in the rail system.

This latest crash will intensify the doubts about the rail system's safety and criticism of the government's management of it.

In particular, Transport Minister Óscar Puente, is likely to come under fire.

The leader of the main opposition People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who hopes to unseat Sánchez in next month's general election, has said today that Spaniards "have a right to a complete and independent review of the entire rail network".

The Spanish Union of Railway Drivers (Semaf) is going ahead with a strike it had scheduled for Thursday, according to a post on the group's Telegram account.

The union says the strike - which it called before the Urda crash - will be held "in defence of railway safety".

In the same post, the Union writes that it is "deeply shaken" by the incident this morning and extends condolences to the victims.

President of Castilla La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, says there will be a minute's silence for the victims later today.

There will be a vigil at Toledo City Hall at 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT).

At least 68 people have been killed after a Spanish high-speed train collided with another train south of the capital Madrid, with dozens more seriously injured.

Speaking from the crash site, Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says "the whole of Spain is grieving", adding: "Lives have been shattered, families have been torn apart, the pain is immense."

Passenger Eduarda was travelling with her two cats and told Hoy por Hoy, a Spanish radio programme, that after the collision she heard screams and saw a carriage on fire, with people under the train who had died.

Transport Minister Óscar Puente says a computer failure led to the initial halt of six moving trains, including the two trains that subsequently collided.

"In the event of a system failure, the control centre takes over," Puente says, adding it was the control centre which decided to allow the trains to move again, without any speed restrictions.

That decision, Puente said, was made "under inexplicable circumstances", and resulted in the collision.

An investigation is under way, dozens are being treated in hospital and three days of mourning have been announced by the prime minister.

More now on the emerging details about those injured in today's crash.

Emergency services say 77 people are in hospital, while Spain's Minister of Health Mónica García says 15 are "seriously injured".

In a post on X, she says "all hospitals have activated their contingency plans, reinforcing emergency services and operating rooms and reorganising care activities".