Spain train crash continues as investigators probe ‘gap’ in rail
Heavy machinery is being used to aid rescue efforts following two train crashes in southern Spain that killed at least 41 people.
Rescue teams spent the second night as it was feared that more bodies would remain in the wreckage.
More than 120 people were injured when the wagons on the train going to Madrid derailed and crossed onto the opposite rails. Hitting an oncoming train in Adamuz on Sunday evening.
According to reports in the Spanish media, faulty or damaged welding on the rail is being investigated as the factor that caused the accident.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez canceled a planned trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos and vowed to get to the root of Spain’s worst train disaster in more than a decade.
Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia will visit the region later on Tuesday.
Three days of national mourning were declared.
Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the death toll was “not yet certain.”
Authorities are working to identify the dead.
Puente described the incident as “extremely strange”, stating that the investigation could take at least a month.
Spanish media reported that the current focus of the investigation is a 30cm gap in one of the rails.
Technicians told El Mundo newspaper that it was “most likely” that a “bad” or “degraded” weld was the cause of the derailment.
“What always plays a role in derailments is the interaction between the rail and the vehicle, and that is what the commission is doing now,” Ignacio Barron, president of the Spanish Commission for the Investigation of Rail Accidents (CIAF), told RTVE. [looking into]”
However, Spain’s El País newspaper reported that it was not clear whether the malfunction was the cause or the result of the accident.
On Monday, Renfe President Álvaro Fernández Heredia apparently ruled out “human error” and told the RNE TV program Las Mañanas that “if the driver makes a mistake, the system will correct it itself.”
Railway officials said there were four hundred passengers and staff on the two trains. Emergency services treated 122 people, including children, 41 of whom are still in hospital. 12 of them are in intensive care.
RTVE journalist Salvador Jimenez, who was on one of the trains, said the blow felt like an “earthquake”.
“I was in the first car. For a moment it felt like there was an earthquake and the train actually derailed,” Jimenez said.
Images taken from the scene show some train wagons lying on their sides. Rescuers are seen climbing aboard the train to rescue people from unstable train doors and windows.
“People were screaming, calling for doctors,” Madrid-bound passenger José told public broadcaster Canal Sur.
Rail network operator Adif said the collision occurred at 19:45 local time (18:45 GMT) on Sunday, about an hour after one of the trains departed Málaga north towards Madrid and derailed on a straight track near the city of Córdoba.
According to the transport minister, the force of the collision pushed the carriages of the second train into an embankment. He added that most of those killed and injured were in the front carriages of the second train from Madrid heading south to Huelva.
All high-speed services between Madrid and the southern cities of Malaga, Cordoba, Seville and Huelva are suspended until Friday.
