Spain Declares Three Days of Mourning After Train Collision Kills 68

Madrid, October 28 (KUNA) -- The Spanish government announced today a three-day official mourning period following a collision between two high-speed trains in the province of Toledo, which killed 68 people and injured 77 others, 15 of them in critical condition. In a statement, the government said the mourning would begin at midnight today and last until midnight next Saturday, noting that the national flag would be flown at half-mast on all public buildings, including diplomatic missions abroad and on Spanish warships, to express solidarity with the families of the victims and the injured.

For his part, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, during his visit to the accident site, stated that “two fatal railway accidents in Spain within a year is unacceptable,” affirming that the government would take all necessary measures to restore citizens’ confidence in the railway system and enhance passenger safety. He added that the investigation would reveal the circumstances and causes of the accident, emphasizing that any proven negligence would be met with firm measures, while expressing his condolences to the victims’ families and solidarity with the injured.

Spanish state television quoted Emiliano Garcia-Page, president of the Castilla-La Mancha region and its capital Toledo, as saying that rescue teams would continue search and recovery operations to extract victims from carriages that had fallen down an embankment at the site, warning that the death toll could rise as debris is cleared in the coming hours.

Regarding the circumstances of the accident, Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente said the Continuous Train Control system (ETCS), an automatic signaling and protection system that continuously monitors train speed and location, suffered a malfunction due to a communication failure among three computers along a 63-kilometer section of the network. Puente explained that the control center of the State Railway Infrastructure Management Agency (ADIF) later decided to resume train movement despite the other train having stopped before a station in Toledo and a red signal being displayed at its entrance, describing the decision to allow the train to resume travel under those conditions as “unfathomable.”

The collision occurred shortly before 9:00 a.m. local time between two trains departing from Madrid bound for the Andalusian city of Seville. The first train, operated by Renfe and carrying 378 passengers, collided with the rear of a second train operated by Iryo, which was stopped on the track near the entrance to Ugena station and carrying 147 passengers. The crash caused several carriages of the stopped Iryo train to derail, with some falling down an embankment and being almost completely destroyed.

Authorities announced the suspension of high-speed train services on the Madrid-Seville line until further notice, and ticket sales for journeys on this route were suspended until December 13. This is the second-deadliest high-speed rail accident in Spain’s history and the second such incident this year, following a collision between two trains in Cordoba, Andalusia, on January 18 that killed 46 people and injured 123 others. (End) H.N.D./H.S.S.