Agency Report
Spain began three days of mourning on Thursday after its second high-speed rail collision this year killed 69 people and injured scores, with relatives desperately seeking news about their loved ones.
One of Europe’s deadliest train disasters this century has raised fresh questions about safety on Spain’s rail network after the transport minister reported an “error” and “inexplicable circumstances” that led to the crash.
During a visit to the crash site, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who faces a general election on November 29, pledged to establish the cause of the crash.
“We are working day and night not only to support the victims’ families, but also to establish every last detail of this tragedy and strengthen safety measures to ensure it never happens again,” he said.
The collision happened in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha on Wednesday morning when a service by state operator Renfe ploughed into the back of a stationary train belonging to private Spanish company Iryo.
Emergency services combed through the twisted wreckage at night to find further victims on the key line linking Madrid with the southern city of Seville, hoisting pieces of mangled metal with cranes, AFP reporters saw.
Sniffer dogs and thermal drones were deployed at the crash site a few kilometres from the village of Urda on Thursday to search for bodies, the regional government said, raising the death toll to 69 from 68
Josimar Medina, a 31-year-old Peruvian who was holidaying in Spain with his girlfriend, said he was sleeping on the Renfe train when “I woke up, and I was in the air.”
Pablo Mejia, 42, escaped with injuries to his head, telling AFP that a last-minute change of seat saved his life.
Wearing a bloodstained grey jumper and holding his tattered suitcase, he recounted “a very strong hit… a lot of people on the floor, on top of each other, seats ripped out, suitcases, a lot of chaos”.
“I think I’ve been born again,” he said.
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will visit train crash victims in a Toledo hospital on Thursday afternoon, the royal household said.
– ‘Nervous and desperate’ –
A school in Urda, around 130 kilometres (80 miles) south of Madrid, is being used to allow relatives to enquire about their loved ones.
Teams of Red Cross workers offered support to groups of people who arrived, some of them in tears, amid crowds of police and journalists from around the world.
Red Cross psychologist Carmen Garcia said “long and hard hours” were in store because “every person will manage it in their own way.
“We have people who are in shock, who haven’t taken on board what has happened, angry people, sad, worried people. The grieving will be complicated,” Garcia said.
Jose Miguel Fernandez, a parish priest in Urda, joined the emergency services in offering support to the victims’ families.
“Many of them were calm, others were nervous and desperate. They wanted to know straight away and get news of their loved ones, he told AFP.
– Safety questions –
Flags flew at half-mast on public buildings with official ceremonies and public events cancelled or scaled back.
Transport Minister Oscar Puente said on Wednesday that an automatic control system went down on 69 kilometres (43 miles) of track, causing all trains there to be stopped.
But the control centre decided to “resume traffic in circumstances that, from our point of view, are inexplicable,” Puente said, with the Renfe train travelling 25 kilometres before striking the Iryo.
The control centre “had more than enough time to verify the error, and they did not fix it”, he added.
In January, two high-speed trains collided in the southern region of Andalusia after one of them derailed and crossed onto the adjacent track, killing 46 people.
The investigation into that accident is ongoing, but the left-wing government faced heavy criticism over its management of Spain’s railways.
Train drivers went on strike on Thursday “to defend rail safety”. The strike had been called before Wednesday’s crash.
AFP
