Spain Train Crash Kills 68, Second This Year
A state train struck a stopped private train in Toledo province on Wednesday morning after a computer failure shut down track signals.
By Adrian Kovalenko ·
A high-speed train in Spain crashed into the back of another stopped train on Wednesday, killing at least 68 people and leaving 58 in hospitals, in the country's second deadly rail collision this year.
The collision happened at 8:53 a.m. on a flat stretch of track between the towns of Urda and Los Yébenes in Toledo province, Spain's rail operator ADIF said. Both trains were heading south from Madrid to Seville. A state-owned RENFE train carrying 397 passengers struck the rear of an IRYO train carrying 147 passengers that was stopped on the line. The impact derailed two carriages at the tail of the IRYO train and the front of the RENFE train. Rail service was suspended between Madrid, Ciudad Real, and Andalusia.
Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the sequence began at 8:30 a.m., when a computer malfunction shut down the security system along 39 miles of track, forcing trains in that section to stop. The central command center then ordered the RENFE train to resume running without speed limits, even though a stop signal remained active on the line, Puente said. He called that order "inexplicable" and said the train engineers were not to blame. Puente said he was "not attributing responsibility to anyone" while authorities studied how fast the train was traveling; he said it could have been moving at 124 miles per hour on that stretch.
Nine months earlier, on a line in southern Spain, an IRYO train jumped the track and hit an oncoming RENFE train, killing 46 people. That January crash was the deadliest in Spain since a 2013 collision that killed 80. Before this year, no fatal crash had occurred on Spain's dedicated high-speed lines since the network opened in 1992. Spain has built about 2,400 miles of high-speed track over three decades for its 49 million residents, and only China has more, according to the International Union of Railways.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the site and announced three days of national mourning. "It is unacceptable for a country like Spain to suffer two high-speed rail accidents in the same year," he said. King Felipe VI also went to the wreckage. Spain's soccer federation postponed all 24 Copa del Rey games scheduled for Wednesday.
Investigators are still working to determine the train's speed at the time of impact, and 58 people remain under medical care in hospitals.
Source: The Boston Globe
