At least 40 people have died in southern Spain after a high-speed train derailed and collided with an oncoming one on Sunday night in one of the worst railway accidents in Europe in 80 years.
Twelve were in intensive care after the accident near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba, about 360km south of Madrid, according to emergency services.
Experts probing the cause of derailment found a broken joint on the rails, according to a source briefed on initial investigations into the disaster.
The derailed carriages smashed into an oncoming train, pushing it off the tracks and down an embankment in one of the worst train disasters in Europe in modern times.
They found that the faulty joint created a gap between the rail sections that widened as trains continued to travel on the track.
That faulty joint could prove important in identifying the cause of the accident, a source said on anonymity.
“The train tipped to one side... then everything went dark, and all I heard was screams,” said Ana Garcia Aranda, 26, who was being treated at a Red Cross centre in Adamuz.
Limping and with plasters across her face, she described how fellow passengers dragged her out of the train covered in blood.
Firemen rescued her pregnant sister from the wreckage and an ambulance took them both to hospital.
A total of 43 reports of missing persons have been filed so far at police headquarters in Huelva, Madrid, Málaga, Córdoba and Seville, officials said.
The collision occurred in a hilly, olive-growing region accessible only by a single-track road, making it difficult for ambulances to reach the area, Iñigo Vila, national emergency director at the Spanish Red Cross, told Reuters.
Spanish train drivers had warned state-owned rail infrastructure administrator Adif of “severe wear and tear” on the Madrid-Andalusia line and others, according to a letter seen by Reuters sent to Adif by train drivers’ union Semaf in August and urging stricter speed restrictions. Adif had no immediate comment.
The Andalusia region’s President Juan Manuel Moreno said emergency crews faced difficulties bringing in the heavy equipment needed to lift the wreckage and reach those still lying beneath it.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Transport Minister Oscar Puente visited the site yesterday.
Police drone footage showed how the trains, which were carrying 527 people, came to a standstill 500 metres apart.
One train’s carriage was split in two, and the locomotive was crushed like a tin can.
Ignacio Barron, head of Spain’s Commission of Investigation of Rail Accidents (CIAF), said on RTVE: “What always plays a part in a derailment is the interaction between the track and the vehicle, and that is what the commission is currently (looking into).”
Paqui, an Adamuz resident who rushed to help rescue survivors with her husband, said he had “found a dead child inside, another child calling for his mother. You’re never ready to see something like this.”
Police said they had opened an office in Cordoba for relatives to provide DNA samples to help identify the dead.
The Iryo train was travelling at 110kmph from Malaga to Madrid when it derailed, Renfe President Álvaro Fernandez Heredia said on radio station Cadena Ser.
Twenty seconds later, the second train, heading to Huelva at 200kmph, either collided with the final two carriages of the Iryo train or with debris on the line, he said.
The Iryo train lost a wheel that has not yet been located.
&uuid=(email))