At least 39 people have been killed and dozens more taken to hospital after a high-speed train carrying about 300 passengers derailed and collided with an oncoming train in southern Spain on Sunday night.
As people scrambled to track down loved ones who were still missing, and officials warned that the death toll could continue to rise, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, described it as a “night of deep pain for our country”.
What was the collision?
The collision near Adamuz in Córdoba province involved two trains heading in opposite directions.
One was northbound, travelling from the southern city of Málaga to Madrid’s Atocha station and carrying 289 passengers, four crew members and a driver, according to the private company Iryo, which owned the train.
The second train was southbound and was believed to be carrying nearly 200 passengers from Madrid to the small city of Huelva. It was part of Spain’s public train company, Renfe.
Adamuz is located about 20 miles (32km) north-east of the city of Córdoba in southern Spain. The town’s mayor, Rafael Moreno, told the newspaper El País he was among the first to arrive at the scene. “It was horrific,” he said. “It was night-time. There was no light.”
Images showed twisted train cars lying on their sides under floodlights. An official told Reuters that the collision had taken place in a remote location that was only accessible by a single-track road, making it difficult for ambulances to enter and exit the area.
What do we know about what happened?
Officials said the collision occurred just before 8pm on Sunday night, when the rear part of the Madrid-bound train came off the rails. Parts of the train were believed to have collided with the southbound train, which was travelling on the adjacent track, said Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente.
“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.
The impact knocked the first two carriages of the southbound train off the track, sending it plummeting down a 4-metre (13ft) slope, he said. It was these two carriages that bore the brunt of the damage, he added.
One passenger travelling to Huelva told Spanish media that the collision had left passengers reeling. “Everything was very fast and chaotic; suitcases started falling, and when we were finally able to get out of the train cars, we saw a catastrophic situation.”
María Vidal, 32, who was on the train on the opposite track heading towards Madrid, said it felt “like an earthquake” when the trains collided. “Everything shook, then suddenly the train slammed on the brakes and the lights went out,” she told El País. “The Iryo staff asked if there were any doctors onboard to go to cars six, seven, and eight. I was in car four … I saw people who were really badly hurt.”
What do we know about casualties?
Early on Monday, officials said at least 39 people had died. About four dozen people remained in hospital, including 12 who were in intensive care. Spanish media said those killed included the driver of the Renfe train.
Officials said on Monday that all of the survivors had been rescued and work was continuing to recover and identify the dead. On social media, people whose loved ones were still missing pleaded for information, while police said they had opened several offices where people could file reports and “provide DNA samples for the purpose of identification”.
The head of the Andalusian government, Juanma Moreno, said it had been necessary to expand the search to include the area beyond the crash. “The impact was so incredibly violent that we have found bodies hundreds of metres away, which means that people were thrown through the windows.”
What do we know of the causes?
Puente said the cause of the collision remained unknown. He described it as “truly strange”, given that the accident had taken place on a straight stretch of track that was renovated in May.
The Iryo train that derailed was less than four years old, he added, while the company said the train had been inspected four days before the crash.
The president of Renfe, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, on Monday ruled out the possibility that the collision had been caused by excessive speed. It occurred on a stretch of track where the speed limit was 250km/h (155mph), while the trains were travelling at 205km/h and 110km/h, he told the broadcaster Cadena Ser.
What is the reputation of Spain’s rail network?
With almost 4,000km of track, Spain’s high-speed railway network ranks as the largest in Europe and the second biggest in the world after China, according to the Spanish infrastructure administrator Adif.
The network is tremendously popular, competitively priced and considered a safe mode of transport. In 2024, Renfe said more than 25 million passengers had travelled on its high-speed trains that year.
In 2020, Spain opened up its high-speed rail network to private competition. Iryo, a joint venture between Italy’s state railway operator, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, the Spanish airline Air Nostrum and the infrastructure investment fund Globalvia, began operating along the Madrid-Barcelona route in November 2022, steadily expanding its service to other cities.
Sunday’s crash was the deadliest in Spain since 2013, when 80 people died after a train derailed in the country’s north-west. An investigation concluded the train was travelling at 179km/h on a stretch of the line with an 80km/h speed limit when it left the tracks.
