MADRID (AP) — A high-speed train in southern Spain derailed Sunday evening, colliding with another high-speed train and killing at least 39 people and injuring more than 150 others, Spanish authorities reported.
Rescue efforts were still ongoing Monday and officials said the death toll is likely to rise. The accident was the deadliest in Spain since a 2013 crash that killed 80 people after a commuter train hurtled off the rails as it came around a bend.
Here’s what to know about the crash:
The derailment and collision
The derailment occurred Sunday at 7:45 p.m. when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails. It slammed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern city, according to rail operator Adif.
The head of the second train took the brunt of the impact, Transport Minister Óscar Puente said. That collision knocked its first two carriages off the track and sent them plummeting down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. The collision took place near Adamuz, a town in the province of Cordoba, about 370 kilometers (about 230 miles) south of Madrid.
On Monday morning, Andalusia’s regional President Juan Manuel Moreno said authorities were searching the area near the accident for possible bodies.
“The impact was so incredibly violent that we have found bodies hundreds of meters away,” Moreno said.
Officials call accident ‘strange,’ with investigation underway
Explanations about what caused the crash were scant, with an official investigation underway.
Transport Minister Puente called the crash “truly strange” since it happened on a flat stretch of track that had been renovated in May. He said the train that jumped the track was less than 4 years old. That train belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train, which took the brunt of the impact, belonged to Spain’s public train company, Renfe.
Iryo said in a statement Monday that its train was manufactured in 2022 and passed its latest safety check on Jan. 15.
Álvaro Fernández, the president of Renfe, told Spanish public radio RNE that both trains were traveling well under the speed limit of 250 kph and “human error could be ruled out.”
Spain’s expansion of high-speed rail network
Spain has spent decades investing heavily in high-speed trains. It currently has the largest rail network in Europe for trains traveling over 250 kph (155 mph), with more than 3,100 kilometers (1,900 miles) of track, according to the European Union.
The network is a popular, competitively priced and safe mode of transport. Sunday’s accident was the first with deaths on Spain’s high-speed rail network since it opened its first line in 1992.
The Associated Press
