At least 39 people have been killed and 12 are in intensive care after two trains collided in southern Spain on Sunday night in what the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called “a night of deep pain for our country”.
A high-speed Iryo train travelling from Málaga to Madrid derailed near the municipality of Adamuz in Córdoba province at about 7.40pm on Sunday, crossing on to another track where it hit an oncoming train, Adif, Spain’s rail infrastructure authority, said on social media.
The second train, which was operated by the state rail company, Renfe, also derailed, falling down a 4-metre (13ft) slope, authorities said.
The two trains were carrying about 500 people in total at the time of the collision. On Monday morning, emergency services in Andalucía said 122 people had been treated for their injuries and 48 people were still in hospital, of whom 12 were in intensive care units.
“There are many injured – I am still trembling,” María San José, 33, a passenger on the train that first derailed, told El País.
Another woman travelling on the same train said she had been heading to Madrid when the collision happened. “The train tipped to one side … then everything went dark, and all I heard was screams,” she told Reuters.
Her face covered in plasters, she said she had been dragged out of the train through a window by other passengers who had escaped. Firefighters rescued her sister from the wreckage and an ambulance took them both to hospital. “There were people who were fine and others who were very, very badly injured,” she said. “You had them right in front of you and you knew they were going to die, and you couldn’t do anything.”
An unidentified passenger on the second train – which was going from Madrid to Huelva – told the public broadcaster TVE: “There were people screaming, their bags fell from the shelves. I was travelling to Huelva in the fourth carriage – the last, luckily.”
Television images showed medical crews and fire services at the scene.
The Córdoba fire chief, Paco Carmona, told TVE that while the Iryo train had been evacuated within hours of the crash, the Renfe carriages were badly damaged , hampering efforts. “There are still people trapped. The operation is concentrating on getting people out of areas which are very narrow,” he said. “We have to remove the bodies to reach anyone who is still alive. It is proving to be a complicated task.”
Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, said the cause of the crash had yet to be established. Speaking at a press conference at Atocha station in Madrid, he said it was “really strange” that a derailment should have happened on a straight stretch of track. This section of track was renewed in May, he said.
Puente said most of those killed and injured had been in the first two carriages of the second train. “It’s speculation, of course, but if a train hadn’t been coming in the opposite direction, we likely would not be talking about any victims at all,” he added.
Sánchez said early on Monday that he had cancelled plans to travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos and would instead be heading to the site of the crash. Hours later he spoke briefly to reporters in the southern town of Adamuz, declaring three days of mourning across Spain and vowing a full and transparent investigation into the cause of the collision.
“It’s a day of sorrow for all of Spain,” he said. “Spanish society, like all of us, is wondering what happened, how it happened, how this tragedy could have occurred. And I’m convinced that time and the work of experts will provide us with those answers.”
The regional president of Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, offered his condolences to the families of the victims, adding: “Our hearts are broken.”
A journalist from the public broadcaster RNE who was travelling on one of the trains said the impact had felt like an earthquake. Passengers had used emergency hammers to break carriages windows and get out, he said.
A woman named Carmen posted on X that she had been onboard the Málaga-to-Madrid train. “Ten minutes after departing [from Córdoba], the train started to shake a lot, and it derailed from coach six behind us. The lights went out.”
Footage posted on X by another Iryo train passenger showed a train company official in a fluorescent jacket instructing passengers to remain in their seats in the darkened carriages, and asking those with first aid training to keep watch over fellow passengers.
The official told passengers they would be evacuated when it was safe to do so, but that at that moment the safest place was on the train. He also urged people to conserve their mobile phone batteries so they could use their torches when they disembarked.
The passenger wrote: “In our carriage we’re well but we don’t know about the other carriages. There’s smoke and they’re calling for a doctor.”
Local television images showed a reception centre set up for passengers in Adamuz, a town of 5,000 people, with residents bringing food and blankets as night-time temperatures hovered at about 6C (42F).
Adif has suspended all rail services between Madrid and Andalucía. Spain’s deadliest rail crash this century happened in July 2013, when a train travelling at 111mph (179km/h) derailed on a stretch of track with a 50mph speed limit in the north-western region of Galicia, killing 80 people.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
