Spanish High-Speed Trains Collide Near Madrid, Leaving at Least 68 Dead

At least 68 people were killed and about 80 others injured on Wednesday when a high-speed train slammed into the rear of a stationary train in central Spain. The crash happened shortly before 9am (08:00 GMT) near Urda, a town south of Madrid, and came just weeks before national elections.

A Renfe train, run by Spain's state-owned rail company, hit an Iryo train, operated by a private company that entered the high-speed market in 2022. Both were travelling from Madrid to Seville, carrying 397 and 147 people respectively, according to the Castilla-La Mancha regional government. The collision took place on a raised section of track between Urda and Los Yebenes, near Toledo. Regional officials and emergency sources told El Pais that two Iryo carriages derailed and fell down the embankment.

Regional president Emiliano Garcia-Page said 50 of the injured were in serious condition, 15 of them critically. The worst-hurt were taken to hospitals in the region and in Madrid, while others were sorted by emergency teams at a nearby sports hall. Fifty-two bodies have been recovered so far, and crews are still clearing wreckage and searching for victims trapped beneath it. Survivor Juan Quesada, 65, who suffered a head injury, described "a tremendous impact and so much noise."

According to Transport Minister Oscar Puente, a computer failure at about 8:30am knocked out LZB, the main signalling system that keeps trains a safe distance apart. About six trains on a 63km stretch stopped automatically, and control passed to a Madrid centre run by Adif, the state infrastructure manager. El Pais reported, citing train data and recordings of calls, that controllers cleared the Renfe train to resume normal speed at 8:36am. The Iryo train received the same order at 8:41am but could not move, and its driver reported at 8:48am that it was still stalled. By then the Renfe train was travelling at more than 200km/h, and it hit the Iryo train at 8:53am.

Puente called the control centre's order "inexplicable" and said the drivers and engineers were not to blame. Under usual Spanish rules, trains may move at no more than 40km/h after LZB fails. A backup system exists but detects signals only at set points along the track. El Pais also reported there was no trackside signal between the two trains that could have halted the Renfe service. Renfe said its train moved as instructed, while sources close to Iryo told EFE that its train had stopped at a signal and called controllers as required. Adif has not yet identified where the failure occurred, company sources told EFE.

Adif suspended high-speed services between Madrid and Andalusia, though trains still run between Madrid and Toledo and between Malaga and Seville. Renfe has halted ticket sales on the corridor until December 13, with an alternative service starting Friday.

The crash is the deadliest rail accident in Europe since the 2013 derailment in Santiago de Compostela that killed 80 people. On January 18, a high-speed train derailed near Adamuz in Cordoba province and hit an oncoming train, killing 46 people. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who visited the site and declared three days of national mourning starting Thursday, said the causes of the two crashes appeared unrelated but that two such accidents in a year were "unacceptable for a country like Spain." The Madrid-Seville line is the only high-speed route still using LZB, which dates from 1992. Adif won a 52-month contract in 2021 to replace it with the EU standard system, and that work is still under way.

The disaster has quickly become political. About 1,500 people, gathered by right-wing youth groups, protested outside the Ministry of Transport on Wednesday evening, demanded Puente's resignation and clashed with police. Sanchez cancelled upcoming campaign rallies. Opposition People's Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo cancelled events during the mourning period, saying: "This is the moment to respect the dead, the injured and their families." Vox leader Santiago Abascal has kept campaigning, calling the government "a criminal organisation" and vowing to take it to court.