Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez promised to conduct a thorough investigation of a rail crash that killed at least 68 people on Wednesday, the deadliest such incident in the country in more than a decade. “If there was negligence, we will find out,” Sánchez said, speaking after traveling to the crash site. “If there have been failures in the security system, we will respond decisively.”
Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the collision occurred after a rail control center mistakenly ordered one high-speed train to resume travel while others were stalled, sending it hurtling into the back of an idle train. The accident took place about 80 miles south of Madrid.
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“We are absolutely devastated, this is one of the hardest moments we can face,” said Puente, speaking to reporters in Madrid.
Spain will observe three days of mourning and all city halls will hold a minute of silence at 8 p.m. Wednesday night.
The crash is Spain's most lethal railway catastrophe since 2013, when 80 people perished after a train derailed in the Galicia region, north of Madrid. Another collision this past January also killed more than 40 people, provoking intense scrutiny of Spain's rail infrastructure — once seen as a point of national pride. That debate will now start again just weeks before Spain's national election on Nov. 29, with Sánchez already facing an uphill battle to reelection.
Both accidents this year happened on the line running south from Madrid and involved state-owned train operator Renfe and Iryo, a rival operator controlled by Italy's state-owned company Ferrovie dello Stato. But initial evidence suggests no connection between the two incidents, Sánchez said, instead pointing to potential human error in the latest crash.
Wednesday's collision happened shortly after the railway's automatic security system stopped working at roughly 8:30 a.m. local time, Puente said. All trains in the area were initially halted and a control center operated by Spain's railway traffic operator Adif took over.
Then, at 8:36 a.m., the control center allowed a Renfe high-speed train to start moving again while others remained stopped — a decision Puente called “inexplicable.” Roughly 15 minutes later, the train collided with a stationary Iryo train between the villages of Los Yébenes and Urda, potentially going up to 200 kilometers (124.27 miles) an hour.
Local authorities quickly dispatched ambulances, helicopters, police and Red Cross personnel, while the Spanish government deployed the army's Emergency Military Unit, a special task force for civilian disasters and accidents.
The crash is likely to become a major talking point in Spain's upcoming national election.
A union linked to the far-right Vox party started sending out calls to hold a protest Wednesday night in front of Spain's Transport Ministry. And even before the cause or death toll was known, Vox leader Santiago Abascal blamed the accident on the “abandonment, ruin and betrayal suffered by Spaniards” at the hands of Sánchez's government.
Vox is polling third and could play a decisive role in forming the next government, with polls showing the conservative People's Party in the lead.
Conversely, People's Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a leading candidate to be Spain's next prime minister, held back on making explicit political attacks.
“Spain has the right to know what is happening with its infrastructure, the state of the tracks and safety systems,” he said, but added: “I am not going to get into a discussion about political responsibilities right now; today is not the day for that.”
Spain's last major railway accident sparked a nationwide debate over the safety of the country's nearly 4,000 kilometers of high-speed rail network, the world's second-largest, according to the International Union of Railways.
That incident remains under investigation, but the opposition blames the government for neglecting infrastructure, from railways to roads.
Some 40 million people traveled on Spain's commercial high-speed rail services in 2024, up 77% from 2019, according to data from the national competition authority. The increase partly reflects population growth as well as a surge in tourism, with Spain now receiving close to 100 million visitors a year.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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