A train crash in Spain that killed 68 people is the latest tragedy in a series of deadly railway accidents in the country.
Safety concerns have haunted Spain’s rail network for years, and today’s fatal incident in the province of Toledo came just a day before train drivers who had raised concerns over safety measures were set to strike.
Rail unions were planning a 24-hour strike on Thursday outside Renfe, Spain’s state-owned railway company, to ensure safer conditions.
‘Our goal is to change the system and make it safer,’ the union said earlier this month.
The union also called for guarantees that trains would be ‘reliable and safe’, adding: ‘We demand real and definitive technical solutions to the safety and reliability issues that have long plagued our rolling stock.’
The accident on Wednesday comes with memories still fresh of another crash between high-speed trains in January that killed 46 people.
After the January incident in Adamuz, several critics blamed socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, raising questions over whether his government had spent enough on railway maintenance in a country where train travel accounts for about 57 per cent of all transport.
And while the cause of Wednesday’s accident has yet to be confirmed, the collision has raised questions over the state of the country’s infrastructure, and why there have been so many deadly crashes in recent months.
Over recent decades, Spain has invested heavily in high-speed rail — which the country’s railway union defines as rails for trains going 155 miles per hour and over — turning it into a world leader.
A general view showing the derailed carriages of the two high-speed trains as emergency services arrive at the scene
Emergency services are seen at the site of a train collision between a high speed Renfe AVE train and Iryo train around 150kms south of Madrid between Urda and Los Yebenes in the province of Toledo
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Spain has laid some 2,400 miles of such tracks over more than three decades for its 49 million residents.
Only recently did Spain open its rail network to private companies to compete against Renfe.
Spanish Railway Signalling Engineer Carlos Rico told the Daily Mail that privatisation has increased passenger traffic, while railway maintenance has stayed the same.
‘Essentially, the same level of maintenance is being carried out as when traffic was much lower.’
This, he says, is ‘affecting the efficiency of Spain’s railway system and potentially its safety as well.’
‘People are becoming fearful and losing confidence in the railway system. Measures are being taken that should help, but restoring and maintaining such a large network will require years of intensive work.’
Mr Rico adds that responsibility rested with Adif, Spain’s state-owned railway infrastructure operator.
‘Maintaining a network where trains regularly travel at 300 kilometres per hour requires substantial investment, both in the trains themselves and in the infrastructure, particularly the tracks.
‘If the network is not properly maintained, you can turn what should be 5,000 kilometres of extremely high-quality railway into 5,000 kilometres of potentially high-risk infrastructure.
‘For 30 years, high-speed rail in Spain had experienced only one major accident, the one in Galicia around ten years ago.
‘Yet this year we have already had two serious accidents, with more than 50 deaths in each. That should prompt railway authorities and those responsible for the network to reflect seriously on what has gone wrong,’ he says.
Rail operator Adif said the incident occurred between the towns of Mora and Orgaz
An aerial view of the crash site shows dozens of emergency vehicles
Around 400 people are believed to have been travelling in the two trains that crashed
A photo from the scene shows the extreme destruction to the carriage, and what appears to be a piece of track going through the carriage
A passenger rescued from one of the trains involved in a collision arrives in Urda, Spain
Horrifying photos show passengers evacuating the train as entire carriages have been reduced to rubble
Passengers are seen near the wreckage of the train
A passenger on one of the trains told local media that the carriage was ‘completely wrecked’ moments after the crash
A spokesperson for Spain’s train workers’ union, Joan Rodríguez, also said that increased traffic has put extra strain on rail infrastructure.
‘We are not convinced that the liberalisation of the high-speed passenger rail service was matched by the necessary upkeep of the lines,’ Rodríguez told Spanish broadcaster TVE.
‘I am not saying it was a determining factor (in the crashes), but yes, the increase in use of the network is a factor to keep in mind.’
Authorities confirmed the deaths of 68 people and said dozens more were injured after an Iryo service travelling from Madrid to Seville reportedly came to a stop near the city of Toledo due to a signal failure.
Ten minutes later, a Renfe train on the same route struck the stationary locomotive after the central command centre failed to warn of the disruption and told the train to continue its journey.
A number of carriages from both trains derailed following the crash, with most of the victims believed to have been on board two train cars that have plunged down the embankment at the scene.
Around 544 people are believed to have been travelling on the two high-speed trains, which can reach a maximum speed of 300km per hour – or around 185mph.
Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente said that the accident was caused by what he called the ‘inexplicable’ order from a central command centre for Spain’s trains after a security system had failed. He said the train engineers were not to blame.
Puente said that at 8.30am the security system on a stretch of 63 kilometers (39 miles) stopped working due to a computer malfunction, causing all trains on that stretch to stop.
But the central command told the Renfe train to start running again without any speed restrictions, and it ended up colliding with the stopped Iryo train at 8.53am.
Puente said that the train should never have been told to start moving again since there was still a ‘stop signal’ active on that line. And if it had, at least it should have been told to go at reduced speed.
Puente said they were still studying information to see how fast the train was going, but it could have been at 200 kph (124 mph) for that stretch of the track.
Regional government sources this afternoon raised the death toll to ‘at least’ 68. The previously reported figure stood at 64.
