At least 39 killed in high-speed train crash in Spain

As we previously reported, an office has been set up at the Cordoba police headquarters so relatives of victims can provide DNA samples to identify the deceased.

The Civil Guard has now said that several other offices have been established in the cities of Huelva, Malaga and Madrid so that the families of those affected by the train crash can file reports and provide DNA samples for identification purposes.

Alvaro Fernandez Heredia – the president of the state-owned rail operator Renfe, which ran one of the trains involved in the crash – says “human error is practically ruled out” as a cause of the collision.

Speaking to local radio station Cadena Ser, Heredia said the crash happened in “strange conditions” but added it was too early to talk about the cause.

He also said a commission tasked with investigating the collision has headed to the site to collect evidence.

We have spoken to Madrid-based journalist Graham Keeley, who’s been following the story.

Of the more than 150 people injured in the collision, 24 are known to be in intensive care at the moment, he said.

The circumstances and cause of the accident remain unclear, Keeley added, but “there is some suggestion that the first train to Madrid, Malaga to Madrid, may have come off the track and some debris from that train may have come loose and then hit the second train.”

“Therefore, it may not have been a frontal collision,” he told Al Jazeera.

As we’ve been reporting, Spain’s high-speed railway ⁠network is the largest in Europe and the second-biggest in the world after China, according to state-owned rail infrastructure administrator Adif.

The country opened up its high-speed rail network to private competition in 2020 in an attempt to offer low-cost alternatives to state-owned rail operated Renfe’s Ave trains.

There were about 400 passengers on the two trains that collided, operated by Iryo and Alvia, according to a statement from Renfe.

Iryo is a joint venture between Italian state railway operator Ferrovie dello Stato, airline ‍Air Nostrum and Spanish infrastructure investment fund Globalvia. It started operating in November 2022, starting with the Madrid-Barcelona route and expanding to other major cities.

Alvia is operated by Renfe.

French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed his condolences over the train collision.

“My thoughts are with the victims, their families and the entire Spanish people. France stands by your side,” he said in a post on X.

Spain’s royal palace has said King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia are following the news of the deadly train crash “with great concern”.

The monarchs offered “our most heartfelt condolences to the relatives and loved ones of the dead, as well as our love and wishes for a swift recovery to the injured”, the palace said in a statement.

The Spanish Congress of Deputies has called for a minute of silence at midday (11:00 GMT) in tribute to the victims of the train accident, El Pais newspaper reports.

“The lower house joins in the grief of all Spanish citizens and extends its deepest condolences to the affected families,” a statement by the chamber said, according to the newspaper.

The city of Huelva, close to the site of the accident, has declared three days of mourning, El Pais said.

Most of those dead and badly injured from the crash were at the front of the trains that derailed, particularly in the one that was travelling from Madrid to Huelva, journalist Lily Mayers tells Al Jazeera.

“It’s a very popular network. [The trains] are used every day by Spaniards in Spain, and it helps people connect and commute really quickly across the country, so they’re very popular,” she said from Madrid, adding that this was the worst crash in at least a decade.

“In 2013, the worst crash in history happened in Galicia [in] the northwest of the country when 80 people died in a derailment. So this isn’t the first time Spaniards have experienced a tragedy of this size, but unfortunately, that number of the death toll is continuing to rise this morning.”

 

Spain’s Civil Guard says more than 220 personnel are continuing to work on rescue operations.

Spain’s Central Forensic Team, meanwhile, is working on identifying victims, the guard said in a post on X.

An office has also been set up at the Cordoba police headquarters so relatives of victims can provide DNA samples to identify the deceased, it said.

 More than 220 Civil Guard officers, from units of Citizen Security, Traffic Group, GRS and the Air Service, continue working on the operation following the railway accident that occurred in #Adamuz #Cordoba. The Central Forensic Team is working on the victim identification tasks. #CivilGuard #Derailment #AdamuzRailwayAccident

The high-speed train involved in the deadly collision was last inspected on Thursday, according to the operator, Iryo said.

The train was built in 2022 and was inspected on January 15, Iryo said in a statement, adding the train “veered onto the adjacent track for still unknown reasons”.

The company is also offering changes and refunds free of charge, and has set up a hotline for those affected.

A passenger on the train which crashed and which was bound for the city of Huelva, who gave only her first name Montse, told Spanish public television that the train, “with a jolt, came to a complete stop, and everything went dark”.

She described being thrown around in the last carriage and seeing luggage hit other passengers.

“The attendant behind me hit her head and was bleeding. There were children crying,” she added.

“Luckily, I was in the last car. I feel like I was given a second chance at life.”

Survivor Lucas Meriako, who was travelling on the other train that derailed, told La Sexta television that “this looks like a horror movie”.

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“We felt a very strong hit from behind and the feeling that the whole train was about to collapse, break … there were many injured due to the glass,” he said.

 

The EU Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, has expressed her condolences to those affected by the deadly crash in Spain.

“I wish the injured a swift and full recovery,” she said in a post on X.

 

Due to the deadly collision, more than 130 train services between Madrid and cities in Andalusia, including Seville, Malaga, Cordoba and Huelva, have been cancelled today.

Rail operator Renfe said it had offered free changes and refunds to affected passengers.

Adif, Spain’s rail infrastructure manager, meanwhile, has set up a hotline to assist relatives of the victims.

Spain has the largest high-speed rail network in Europe for trains moving over 250km/h (155 miles per hour), with more than 3,100km (1,900 miles) of track, according to the European Union.

The network is a popular, competitively priced and safe mode of transport.

Rail operator Renfe said more than 25 million passengers took one of its high-speed trains in 2024.

Despite its extensive presence, this isn’t the first deadly train accident in the country.

In fact, Spain’s worst train accident this century took place in 2013, when 80 people died after a train derailed in the country’s northwest. An investigation concluded the train was traveling 179km/h (111 miles per hour) on a stretch with an 80km/h (50 mph) speed limit when it left the tracks.

 

We have some comments from Oscar Puente, the transport minister, who reiterated early this morning that the cause of the crash is still unknown.

Puente called it “a truly strange” incident because it happened on a flat stretch of track that had been renovated in May. He also said the train that jumped the track was less than four years old. That train belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train, which took the brunt of the impact, was part of Spain’s public train company Renfe.

According to Puente, the back part of the first train derailed and crashed into the head of the other train, knocking its first two carriages off the track and down a 13-foot slope. He said the worst damage was to the front section of the Renfe train.

When asked by reporters how long an inquiry into the crash’s cause could take, he said it could be a month.

Puente also said he was heading to Cordoba.

 

• The accident happened at 7:45pm local time (18:45 GMT) on Sunday, when the tail end of a train traveling between Malaga and Madrid slammed into a train coming from Madrid to Huelva, according to rail operator Adif.
• The cause for the crash is not yet known, according to Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente.
• Video from the scene shared on social media yesterday showed rescuers pulling passengers from twisted carriages lying on their side. Some passengers climbed out of smashed ‌windows, while others were wheeled away on stretchers.
• Andalusia regional President Juanma Moreno said 75 passengers were hospitalised.
• Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has cleared out his agenda for the day, his office said in a statement today.
• There were around 400 passengers aboard the two trains, most of them ⁠Spaniards travelling back to and from Madrid after the weekend. It was unclear how many tourists could be onboard as January is ‌not holiday season in Spain.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of a collision on Sunday between a derailing high-speed train and an oncoming train in southern Spain, which has killed at least 39 people and injured 152 others, according to state broadcaster ⁠RTVE.

Stay with us as we bring you the latest about this deadly accident, which took place near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba.