At least 68 people have been killed and about 80 injured after a high-speed train crashed into a stationary service near Urda in central Spain, in the country’s second deadly rail disaster in less than a year.
The collision happened shortly before 9am on Wednesday on a raised section of track between Urda and neighbouring Los Yebenes, south of Madrid and close to the historic city of Toledo. Around 50 of the injured were seriously hurt and 15 were in a critical condition.
The moving train, operated by Spain’s state-owned Renfe, struck the rear of an Iryo train which had stopped on the line. Both services were travelling from Madrid to Seville, with 397 people aboard the Renfe train and 147 on the Iryo service.
Two carriages of the Iryo train derailed and fell down the embankment. Emergency crews were still clearing the wreckage and searching for victims trapped beneath it, with 52 bodies recovered so far.
What caused the Spain high-speed train crash?
Transport Minister Oscar Puente said a computer failure had disabled LZB, the main signalling system, at about 8.30am. The system automatically maintains a safe distance between trains and can apply the brakes if a train is detected ahead.
About six trains on a 63km stretch of track stopped automatically, including the two involved in the crash. The Renfe train was running about 25km behind the Iryo service on the same line.
Control of the trains then passed to an Adif centre in Madrid. Adif, the state company responsible for Spain’s rail infrastructure, had to determine when and at what speed the services could resume.
According to a preliminary account based on train data and recordings of calls with controllers, Renfe was authorised to continue at normal speed at 8.36am. Iryo received the same instruction five minutes later but failed to move.
At 8.48am, the Iryo driver told controllers that the train remained stationary. By then, the Renfe train had accelerated to more than 200km/h. Five minutes later it hit the rear of the Iryo service.
Mr Puente described the instruction allowing the Renfe train to continue as “inexplicable”. He said the drivers and engineers were not to blame, arguing that the train should either have remained stopped while the signal showed danger or been told to proceed at a much lower speed.
Rail rules normally require trains to travel at no more than 40km/h when LZB is not operating. A back-up system remains in use, but it identifies trains only at fixed points along the track rather than monitoring the line continuously.
Rail engineer Jose Luis Gonzalez Vallve said the functioning LZB system would have detected the stationary train and prevented the crash. There was also reportedly no trackside signal between the two trains capable of stopping the Renfe service, leaving instructions from the control centre as the only safeguard.
Renfe said its train had moved as instructed. Sources close to Iryo said its service had stopped at a signal and that its driver had contacted controllers as required. Adif has not yet established where the failure occurred at its control centre.
Victims and emergency response
The most seriously injured passengers were taken to hospitals in Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid. Other survivors were assessed at a sports hall near the crash site, where emergency teams separated people according to the severity of their injuries.
Local media described passengers with head injuries, swollen faces and bloodied clothing being treated near the scene. Juan Quesada, 65, who was travelling to Seville for work, suffered a head injury and described “a tremendous impact and so much noise”.
Spain’s Civil Guard has sent a disaster investigation team to collect evidence. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the site and declared three days of national mourning, beginning on Thursday.
Mr Sanchez pledged that any negligence would be exposed and that system failures would receive a strong response. He said the causes of the two high-speed rail crashes this year appeared unrelated, but called having two such disasters in one year “unacceptable for a country like Spain”.
Rail services suspended after collision
Adif suspended high-speed services between Madrid and Andalusia following the crash. Trains continued to operate between Madrid and Toledo, and between Malaga and Seville.
Renfe stopped selling tickets on the Madrid-Andalusia high-speed corridor until December 13. An alternative service between Madrid and Andalusia is due to begin on Friday.
The Madrid-Seville route is Spain’s only high-speed line still using LZB, a system dating from the route’s opening in 1992. Adif was awarded a 52-month contract in 2021 to replace it with the European Union’s standard signalling system, but the work remains under way.
The latest collision follows a derailment near Adamuz in Cordoba province on January 18, when a high-speed train hit an oncoming service. Forty-six people died in that crash, which also involved Renfe and Iryo trains on the same line.
Political pressure grows ahead of elections
The crash has intensified political pressure on the government with national elections approaching. Mr Sanchez cancelled forthcoming campaign rallies to focus on the emergency, while Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the opposition People’s Party, suspended campaign events during the mourning period and called for a full investigation.
About 1,500 people gathered outside the Transport Ministry on Wednesday evening in a protest organised by right-wing youth groups. Demonstrators called for Mr Puente to resign and clashed with police.
Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, continued campaigning and described the government as “a criminal organisation”, saying he would take it to court.
