Spain high-speed train collision kills 68, injures more than 100 as rail safety comes under scrutiny

URDA, Oct 29 — A high-speed train collision south of Madrid killed 68 people and injured scores more yesterday, authorities said, in one of Europe’s deadliest such disasters this century.

The second such accident to strike Spain this year will raise fresh questions about the country’s rail safety, with the transport minister speaking of an “error” and “inexplicable circumstances” that led to the crash.

AFP reporters on the scene in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha saw one train embedded into another and some carriages lying on their side at the bottom of an embankment strewn with debris.

The constant to-and-fro of emergency services vehicles continued at night, with rescuers using a drone, lights and cranes to hoist mangled metal and search for further victims in the cold.

Castilla-La Mancha’s leader Emiliano Garcia-Page told reporters at the scene that 68 people had died, raising an earlier toll of 64.

“We don’t know if another body might appear when the carriages are moved,” he added.

A spokeswoman from the Castilla-La Mancha regional government told AFP that more than 100 people had been injured, with 15 in a critical condition.

Pablo Mejia, 42, said that he had miraculously survived with injuries to his head after changing his seat.

With blood staining his grey jumper, he recounted “a very strong hit. It lasted a long time until it stopped, lots of people on the floor, on top of each other, seats ripped out, suitcases, a lot of chaos.”

A visibly shaken Manuel Ortiz, who lives in the village of Urda close to the site of the accident, around 130 kilometres (80 miles) south of Madrid, said he had been transporting survivors all morning in his car.

Ortiz, 49, described a “horrific, horrible” scene that “smelled of an accident, of metal”.

State railway operator Renfe confirmed in a statement that the main high-speed line from Madrid to southern Spain had been suspended after one of its services suffered an accident with a train from private Spanish company Iryo.

Transport Minister Oscar Puente told reporters that the collision came after a train restarted its journey despite a halt to all services on a 69-kilometre stretch of track due to a technical failure in an automatic control system.

“The decision to resume traffic, while that system had not been restored, belongs to the control centre,” which restarted traffic “in circumstances that, from our point of view, are inexplicable”, Puente said.

The Renfe train restarted and travelled 25 kilometres until it collided with the stationary Iryo, at a speed that could have reached “up to 200 kilometres per hour”, Puente added.

The control centre “had more than enough time to verify the error, and they did not fix it”, Puente said.

Rail safety under scrutiny

The accident comes one month before Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who faced heavy criticism for this year’s first disaster, seeks to overturn unfavourable polls and extend his eight-year premiership in an early general election on November 29.

He said Spain would observe three days of mourning from Thursday, conceding it was “not acceptable” that two high-speed collisions could happen within months. His Socialists halted campaign activities.

The leader of the main opposition conservative Popular Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, who leads in most polls, also suspended campaigning but said: “Spain has the right to know what is going on with its infrastructure.”

Condolences flooded in from across Spain and Europe. The Spanish royal household said on X it was “shocked and concerned”, conveying its support to the victims, their loved ones and the emergency services.

Spain’s high-speed rail network has received huge investment in recent years, growing to become the second-largest in the world after China’s and a source of national pride.

Almost 26 million passengers used the network between January and August this year, according to official statistics.

But Wednesday’s accident comes after another collision between two high-speed trains outside the southern village of Adamuz in January left 46 dead, which raised major questions about safety on the country’s railways.

That crash was Spain’s deadliest train accident since 2013, when 80 people died after a train veered off a curved section of track outside the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.— AFP

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乌尔达，10 月 29 日——当局称，昨天马德里南部发生的一起高速列车相撞事故造成 68 人死亡，数十人受伤，这是本世纪欧洲最严重的此类灾难之一。

这是西班牙今年发生的第二起此类事故，将再次引发人们对该国铁路安全的质疑。交通部长称，这起事故是由“错误”和“无法解释的情况”造成的。

法新社记者在卡斯蒂利亚-拉曼查中部地区现场看到，一列火车嵌入另一列火车中，一些车厢侧翻在路堤底部，周围散落着碎片。

夜间，救援车辆继续来回穿梭，救援人员使用无人机、照明设备和起重机吊起扭曲的金属，并在寒冷中搜寻其他受害者。

卡斯蒂利亚-拉曼查自治区主席埃米利亚诺·加西亚-佩奇在现场告诉记者，死亡人数已达 68 人，此前公布的死亡人数为 64 人。

“我们不知道移动马车时是否会发现另一具尸体，”他补充道。

卡斯蒂利亚-拉曼查地区政府的一位女发言人告诉法新社，超过100人受伤，其中15人伤势危重。

42岁的巴勃罗·梅希亚表示，他换座位后头部受伤，但奇迹般地活了下来。

他灰色套头衫上沾满了血迹，回忆道：“撞击非常猛烈。持续了很长时间才停止，很多人倒在地上，叠在一起，座位被掀翻，行李箱散落一地，一片混乱。”

住在事故地点附近乌尔达村的曼努埃尔·奥尔蒂斯（Manuel Ortiz）显然受到了惊吓，他表示自己一上午都在用车运送幸存者。乌尔达村位于马德里以南约 130 公里（80 英里）处。

49岁的奥尔蒂斯描述了一个“可怕、恐怖”的场景，那里“弥漫着事故和金属的气味”。

西班牙国家铁路运营商Renfe在一份声明中证实，马德里至西班牙南部的主要高速铁路线已暂停运营，此前该公司的一列火车与西班牙私营铁路公司Iryo的一列火车发生事故。

交通部长奥斯卡·普恩特告诉记者，由于自动控制系统出现技术故障，69 公里长的铁轨上的所有列车服务都已停止，但一列火车在停止运行后重新启动，导致发生碰撞。

普恩特说：“在交通系统尚未恢复的情况下，恢复交通的决定属于控制中心。”该中心在“我们认为无法解释的情况下”重新启动了交通。

普恩特补充说，Renfe 列车重新启动后行驶了 25 公里，然后撞上了静止的 Iryo 列车，速度可能达到了“高达每小时 200 公里”。

普恩特说，控制中心“有足够的时间来核实错误，但他们没有修复它”。

铁路安全受到密切关注

此次事故发生前一个月，社会党总理佩德罗·桑切斯（Pedro Sanchez）因今年的第一场灾难而受到严厉批评，他正寻求扭转不利的民调结果，并在11月29日举行的提前大选中延长其八年的总理任期。

他表示，西班牙将从周四开始举行三天哀悼，并承认几个月内发生两起高速碰撞事故“令人无法接受”。他的社会党已停止竞选活动。

在大多数民调中领先的主要反对党保守派人民党领导人阿尔贝托·努涅斯·费霍也暂停了竞选活动，但他表示：“西班牙有权知道其基础设施的状况。”

来自西班牙和欧洲各地的慰问如潮水般涌来。西班牙王室在推特上表示“震惊和关切”，并向遇难者、他们的亲属以及紧急救援人员表达了慰问和支持。

近年来，西班牙高速铁路网络获得了巨额投资，发展成为仅次于中国的世界第二大高速铁路网络，并成为西班牙的民族自豪感来源。

官方统计数据显示，今年1月至8月，该网络的乘客量接近2600万人次。

但周三发生的这起事故之前，今年 1 月在南部阿达穆兹村附近发生的两列高速列车相撞事故造成 46 人死亡，引发了人们对该国铁路安全的重大质疑。

这是西班牙自2013年以来最严重的火车事故。2013年，一列火车在西北部城市圣地亚哥-德孔波斯特拉附近一段弯道轨道上偏离轨道，造成80人死亡。——法新社

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