Spain Promises Full Transparency After Deadly High-Speed Train Crash Kills 39

“We will uncover the answer, and once the cause of this tragedy is determined, we will present it with absolute transparency.” The interior ministry said 39 people died. Over 120 people were injured, with 43 still in hospital, regional emergency services said. Of those, 12 were in intensive care. Heavy machinery was being deployed to lift the most severely damaged train carriages, the head of the regional government of Andalucia, Juan Manuel Moreno, told reporters. “Unfortunately, it is quite possible that additional victims will be found beneath the twisted wreckage,” he said. “The goal is to identify the victims as quickly as possible.” Unlike the 2013 accident, the derailment occurred on a straight section of track, and the trains were travelling within the speed limit, officials said. Transport Minister Oscar Puente said the first train to derail was “practically new” and the section of the track where the disaster happened had been recently renovated, making the accident “extremely strange”. Train operator Iryo said the locomotive was built in 2022 and last inspected just three days before the accident. It said it “veered on to the adjacent track for still unknown reasons”. The company said around 300 people were on board its service from the Andalusian city of Malaga to the capital, Madrid. Renfe, the operator of the second train travelling to the southern city of Huelva, said it was carrying 184 passengers. Human error has “been practically ruled out”, Renfe president Alvaro Fernandez Heredia told Spanish public radio RNE. “It must be related to Iryo’s rolling stock or an infrastructure issue,” he added. The stretch of track where the accident happened had a speed limit of 250km/h, Heredia said. One train was travelling at 205km/h, and the other 210km/h, he added. Spain has Europe’s largest high-speed rail network, with more than 3000km of dedicated tracks connecting major cities including Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and Malaga. Survivor Lucas Meriako, who was travelling on the first train that derailed, told La Sexta television that it looked “like a horror movie”. “We felt a very strong hit from behind and the feeling that the whole train was about to collapse, break ... there were many injured due to the glass,” he said. Residents of Adamuz, which is filled with white buildings and streets lined with orange trees, were grappling with the aftermath of the disaster. “This is a catastrophe for us,” Jose Perez Rojas, an 80-year-old pensioner, told AFP, calling it “really shocking”. Manuel Munoz, 60, an olive oil factory worker, said locals rushed to the centre of the town as word of the accident spread. “We started bringing water, blankets, everything we could. We helped unload vans bringing more supplies,” he told AFP. French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were among world leaders offering condolences.