A high-speed train collision south of Madrid killed 64 people and injured scores more on Wednesday, with the toll likely to rise, authorities said in one of Europe’s deadliest such disasters this century.
AFP reporters on the scene in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha saw one train embedded into another after the second such accident to strike Spain this year.
Some carriages were lying on their side in tangles of metal debris at the bottom of an embankment, while dozens of emergency services vehicles were racing to and from the site.
“We are speaking of approximately 64 (dead), but this is probably going to grow even more,” Castilla-La Mancha’s leader Emiliano Garcia-Page told reporters at the scene, raising a previous toll of 31.
A spokeswoman from the Castilla-La Mancha government told AFP that more than 100 people had been injured. Of them, 58 had been taken to hospital, with 15 in a critical condition.
Helicopters hovered above the site during a frantic search for survivors, while several black vans arrived from a funeral parlour.
State railway operator Renfe confirmed in a statement that the main high-speed line from Madrid to southern Spain had been suspended after one of its services suffered an accident with a train from private Spanish company Iryo.
Iryo said in a statement that its train, which was carrying 147 passengers and five staff including the driver, “was hit from behind” by the Renfe service.
A visibly shaken Manuel Ortiz, 49, who lives in the nearby village of Urda, around 130 kilometres (80 miles) south of Madrid, told AFP he had been transporting survivors all morning in his car.
Ortiz added that the passengers of the Iryo told him their train was stationary when the collision happened, describing a “horrific, horrible” scene that “smelled of an accident, of metal”.
– Rail safety under scrutiny –
The accident comes one month before Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who faced heavy criticism for this year’s first disaster, seeks to overturn unfavourable polls and extend his eight-year premiership in an early general election on November 29.
Sanchez’s office said he was heading to the scene. The premier had said on X that he was “shocked” by the accident and sent “my love, solidarity and support to all the victims and their families”.
Condolences flooded in from across Spain and Europe. The Spanish royal household said on X it was “shocked and concerned” by the accident, conveying its support to the victims, their loved ones and the emergency services.
An EU spokeswoman said the bloc was “ready to help Spain if needed”, while European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said “Europe mourns” with the victims after the “devastating news”.
The Spanish football federation postponed 24 matches in the first round of the Copa del Rey “as a mark of respect and solidarity”.
Spain’s high-speed rail network has received huge investment in recent years, growing to become the world’s second-largest after China and a source of national pride.
But Wednesday’s accident comes after another collision between two high-speed trains outside the southern village of Adamuz in January left 46 dead, which raised major questions about safety on the country’s railways.
That crash was Spain’s deadliest train accident since 2013, when 80 people died after a train veered off a curved section of track outside the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.
Both of this year’s accidents happened on the line linking Madrid to the southern city of Seville.
The cause of the latest disaster, which happened on a straight stretch of track in sunny, dry conditions, was unknown. Five people wearing white overalls were examining the tracks and taking photographs, AFP saw.
One of the country’s busiest routes, it was Spain’s first high-speed line when it opened in 1992 to coincide with the Seville universal exposition.
