At least 68 killed in train crash in Spain, officials say

By JASON HOROWITZ

A high-speed passenger train rear-ended another in Spain on Wednesday morning near the central city of Toledo, killing at least 68 people and injuring dozens more, officials said, in one of the deadliest train crashes in Spanish history.

The cause of the crash, which sent parts of both trains down a rural embankment, was not immediately clear. It was the second lethal crash this year involving the same two rail operators, and it was likely to deepen doubts about the security of Spain’s once-vaunted rail system.

In Spanish news reports, passengers described an awful impact that tossed people from a dining car, broke limbs and piled passengers atop one another. People crawled out of windows and lay in a nearby field, where local workers, who had heard the crash, rushed to help them with first aid kits and saw the first bodies.

The crash also came about a month before national elections, and it had the potential to become an issue in an already bitter campaign about the competence of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s left-wing government.

Sixty-eight people were seriously injured in the crash, 15 of them critically, said Emiliano García-Page, president of the Castilla-La Mancha region.

Spain’s rail authority, the Adif, said the trains involved were a “Renfe train and another from the Iryo company,” both covering the route between Madrid, the capital, and the southern city of Seville. Renfe is the national rail provider.

Initial reports suggested that the Iryo train was stopped on the tracks and that the Renfe train barreled into it. Local news outlets reported that there were 397 passengers aboard the Renfe train and about 150 aboard the Iryo train.

Trains from the same operators collided on a southern line in January, leaving 46 people dead.

Isaac Barrientos, a spokesperson for the government’s Transportation Ministry, said Wednesday that initial reports indicated two carriages of the Iryo train had derailed. He said all traffic on the Madrid-Andalusia route had been suspended until further notice.

Sánchez visited the scene of the crash Wednesday afternoon, saying that Spanish rail’s security systems clearly needed to be reinforced. “If there has been negligence, it will come to light,” he said. “If there have been failures in the safety system, we will respond with the utmost firmness.” He declared three days of official mourning.

The conservative opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, quickly voiced his own concern as well.

“I am very concerned about the information we are receiving regarding another train accident,” he wrote on social media soon after the crash. “The priority now is to assist the victims and support their families. My full support goes to the emergency teams working on the ground.”

His Popular Party canceled all its campaign events around the country.

In January, a northbound Iryo train derailed, two of its cars falling onto the opposite track, and a southbound Renfe train slammed into the carriages seconds later. An official report on what caused that lethal accident has not been released, but preliminary investigations pointed to a broken rail as the likely cause.