The victims of the serious railway accident in the Cordoba municipality of Adamuz, in which 46 people died and more than a hundred were injured, have gone to Europe to demand an "urgent intervention" in the Spanish railway network in the face of the passivity of the Ministry of Transport, headed by Óscar Puente, to resolve the serious deficiencies discovered in train transport after the accident.
In a letter released this Tuesday, the Association of Victims of the Derailment in Adamuz has reported the administrative complaint that it has just filed with the European Union Railway Agency (ERA) about the train accident that occurred on January 18 in Adamuz (Córdoba). The accident occurred when an Iryo from Malaga derailed and ran over a Renfe Alvia train that was going in the opposite direction: from Madrid to Huelva. The first investigations point to a failure in the welding of the track.
The letter submitted to Europe warns that the Spanish railway system accumulates "more than one hundred track breaks per year" and also includes the reports of the Judicial Police and Criminalistics of the Civil Guard that prove how the damaged rail presented a "frank breakage several hours before the impact."
The association of the victims of Adamuz, represented by Antonio Benítez Ostos, partner and director of Administrativando Abogados, joins with this letter to the requirements of the Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF) in which it denounces "a structural deficiency" in the current system that "does not alert in real time of the breakage of a track."
In their letter to the EU Railway Agency, the victims of Adamuz also echo the warnings of the Spanish Union of Railway Machinists (SEMAF), which already warned about the "instability" in the rolling, with "anomalous oscillations in the trains at speeds close to 280 kilometers per hour"; the presence of "potholes, geometric deformations and wave wear on the rails" and "overweight" on the tracks, with "accelerated degradation of the network due to the entry of low-cost operators with heavier axles."
"Since the accident occurred, this party has no evidence that ADIF, the Spanish Railway Safety Agency (AESF) nor the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility have carried out any type of urgent and effective measure, beyond temporarily lowering the speed, aimed at alleviating the previous anomalies and deficiencies," warns in its letter the Adamuz victims' association, which considers that the current railway network suffers "deficiencies that compromise standards minimum operational security".
Months ago, this association already submitted letters to ADIF, the Spanish Railway Safety Agency and to Minister Óscar Puente in which they formally requested that the temporary interruption of railway traffic in Spain be decreed "immediately" "until the relevant technical certification is issued that guarantees the full safety and reliability of the system, and all necessary actions must be adopted."
However, "and despite the time that has passed since the request of July 7", the association has not received any response from these three organizations, which is why it asks the European agency to intervene and "audit" the management being carried out by the Spanish authorities to "guarantee the safety of the Spanish railway system and, with this, guarantee that it is a completely reliable means of transport that prevents any other accident."
Lawyer Benítez Ostos, legal spokesperson for the association, has expressed his "absolute concern" at the fact that, in just over a decade, Spain has suffered "the two worst railway accidents of democracy" (Angrois in 2013 and Adamuz in 2026), which presumably shows that current measures are "completely insufficient" to guarantee the safety of passengers.
