Experts investigating the deadly rail collision in southern Spain, which killed 45 people and left dozens more injured, believe the accident may have happened after one of the trains passed over a damaged section of rail.
The disaster occurred near the Andalucían town of Adamuz on Sunday, when a high-speed train operated by Iryo, a private company, derailed and collided with an oncoming high-speed train operated by the state rail company, Renfe.
A preliminary report published by the Rail Accidents Investigation Commission (CIAF) on Friday found nicks in the wheels on the right-hand side of the three front carriages of the Iryo train consistent with an impact with the top of the rail.
“These nicks in the wheels and the observed deformation in the rail are consistent with the rail being fractured: with the rail’s continuity interrupted, the section before the break would initially bear the full weight of the wheel, causing that part of the rail to sag slightly,” the report said.
“Since the section of rail after the break would not be acting in unison with the section before it, a step would momentarily form between the two sides of the fracture, which would strike the wheel rim.”
Given the available information, the report added: “We can hypothesise that the rail fracture occurred prior to the passage of the Iryo train involved in the accident and therefore prior to the derailment.” But the CIAF also stressed that the theory was provisional and would be subject to further testing and investigation.
Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, told reporters on Friday afternoon that if the cause of the accident had been a damaged rail, the fault must have occurred “in the minutes or hours before the train derailment and, therefore … could not be detected”.
Puente also said investigators were looking into whether the rail may have suffered a defect during its manufacture.
Pedro Marco de la Peña, the president of Spain’s state rail infrastructure administrator, Adif, said the batch of track in question had been identified and would be carefully tested.
Two days after the Adamuz accident, a train driver was killed and 37 people injured when a train was derailed by the collapse of a retaining wall near Gelida in Catalonia.
The two deadly events have led Semaf, Spain’s largest train drivers’ union, to call a three-day strike in February to demand measures to guarantee the safety of railworkers and passengers.
Semaf said industrial action was “the only legal avenue left for workers to demand the restoration of safety standards on the railway system and, consequently, guarantee the safety of both railway professionals and passengers”.
The tragedy has been seized on by opposition parties which have accused Spain’s socialist-led coalition government of a chaotic response and a lack of transparency.
“The state of the railways is a reflection of the state of the nation,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s party, said on Friday.
He added: “Right now, we don’t have the best rail system in our history; what we have is the worst government in our history.”
