BARCELONA, Spain — At least 68 people were killed and 68 injured when two high-speed trains collided in central Spain on Wednesday, sending carriages careering off the tracks, in the second major accident on the same line in less than a year.
“We heard a massive roar, a truly enormous thud that went on for 10 seconds, as if the train were about to derail,” one passenger, Miguel, told Spain’s COPE radio, adding that he was traveling with several colleagues in the rear car of one of the trains.
“Through the right-hand window, we could see a wrecked train — I imagine it must have been the other one,” he added.
Pictures showed several carriages lying on their sides next to the tracks and others twisted at angles, their wheels sheared off. Debris was strewn around the scene of the accident in the countryside in the province of Toledo.
As rescue teams continued to search through the wreckage of the derailed carriages, the Castilla-La Mancha regional government said 68 people had been killed and 68 injured. Together the two trains were carrying more than 500 passengers.
Several U.S. citizens were among the injured, according to a State Department spokesperson, who said the U.S. is continuing to work with local authorities to identify all Americans involved and provide them consular assistance.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of all those affected,” the spokesperson said. “We encourage U.S. citizens in the area to notify loved ones of their safety and monitor local media for updates.”
At the site of the crash on Wednesday, Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez said: “The government of Spain and the whole state are with the victims and also with the families of the victims.”
Sánchez, who is facing a snap election next month, said the government was investigating the cause of the crash and any failures, vowing action “if there has been negligence.”
He said that the country must restore confidence in its high-speed rail network, with the crash coming after a separate disaster on the same rail line killed 46 people in January. “It is unacceptable for a country like Spain to have two high-speed accidents in less than a year,” he said.
Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, said the crash occurred around 8:53 a.m. Wednesday following a combination of technical and human errors.
Puente said that at around 8:30 a.m., a computer failure led the control system near the station in Urda, Spain, to crash, with a red signal issued, causing several trains in the area to be automatically stopped in place. With the computer system down, rail traffic was then handed over to a control center.
The control center communicated with the stopped trains, Puente said, and the decision was made at approximately 8:36 a.m. to authorize a state-owned Renfe high-speed train to resume its normal journey, despite the fact that there was a stationary train from private rail company Iryo on the tracks ahead.
An erroneous decision was made to restart the Renfe train, breaking protocol, he said.
Locals rushed to the scene of the accident, which has prompted a major national emergency response and raised questions about the safety and security of Spain’s high-speed rail infrastructure, which had previously been hailed as among the most sophisticated in Europe.
“We cut through some fences to access the area and treated people with the first-aid kits we had brought until emergency services arrived,” David Gómez, a construction worker who was working nearby and ran to help, told the newspaper El País.
“As I was trying to pull a young woman out, there was a piece of a leg,” he said.
Spain’s royal family said it shared “in the grief of the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives.”
Spanish political parties said Wednesday they would briefly pause campaigning ahead of next month’s general election. Spain’s football federation also said it would postpone some of its Copa del Rey soccer fixtures following the collision.
Aerial video shows aftermath of deadly crash
Juan Manuel Moreno, the president of the Andalusian regional government, said on X that there would be three days of mourning in the region.
Eduarda, a passenger on the Iryo train, told Spain’s Cadena SER radio that she felt a strong impact that threw her forward and she initially thought the train had made an emergency stop.
After climbing down an embankment to safety, she said she saw part of the train hanging down the slope and a fire in one carriage. “I saw dead people,” she added.
Salvador Arriza, a 62-year-old employee of Airbus, was traveling near the rear of the Renfe train.
He told the Reuters news agency the carriage ended up “completely wrecked, with seats being ripped out.”
“I was lucky because I was in a backward-facing seat, and the impact pushed me into it,” he added. “After the first hit I was disoriented, but the worst thing was that the train then kept moving for quite some time from the inertia and that’s when I thought something would happen to me.”
Emergency responders, including a helicopter, police and ambulances, arrived within about 20 minutes, she said.
Police were still inside the trains late on Wednesday searching for additional victims. The crash site was cordoned off, with most of the injured having been taken to a hospital in the city of Toledo, about 30 minutes away.
Spain has the largest high-speed rail network in Europe for trains moving more than 155 mph, with more than 1,900 miles of track, according to the European Union.
The Spanish Union of Railway Drivers said it would proceed with a planned strike action Thursday “in defense of railway safety.”
