"All of Spain is in mourning," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said from the scene as he declared three days of official mourning. Two high-speed trains collided on Wednesday morning, 28 October, and the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha put the toll at no fewer than 68 dead, warning that the figure could still rise. Flags are at half-mast, and many official events have been cancelled.
The crash happened near the village of Urda in Toledo province, on the high-speed line linking Madrid with Andalusia. Adif, the state rail infrastructure manager, placed it between the towns of Mora and Orgaz. Both trains were heading south towards Seville: a Renfe service carrying 397 passengers ran into the back of a stationary train run by the private operator Iryo, which had 147 people on board. Two of the Iryo carriages left the rails.
At about 08:30, Transport Minister Oscar Puente said, a computer fault knocked out the automatic protection system that halts trains when the track ahead is occupied, stopping all traffic on a stretch of more than 60 km. The control centre then cleared the Renfe train to move on. It covered roughly 25 km before the impact at 08:53. Puente called that instruction wrong and inexplicable, said the drivers were not to blame and stressed that he was not yet assigning responsibility. Sanchez promised that any failure or negligence found by the investigation would be dealt with in the strictest terms.
King Felipe VI visited the site. The Civil Guard opened four offices, in Madrid, Toledo, Cordoba and Seville, to take DNA samples from relatives of the missing, and the Red Cross is offering psychological support at a school in Urda. Spain's football federation put back all 24 Copa del Rey ties set for Wednesday.
From Riyadh, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, sent cables of condolence to King Felipe VI and wished the injured a swift recovery. It is the second deadly crash on Spain's high-speed network this year: in January, a collision near Adamuz in Cordoba province involving trains of the same two operators killed 46 people.
