Six days after the train crash, the transport minister in a country like Spain cannot remain in office after two such serious incidents in less than a year, Puente said, also referring to the January train crash in Andalusia that killed 46 people.
Puente said he was also resigning from running in the early parliamentary elections on November 29. The minister informed Congress about his decision.
It is a matter of political dignity, consistency and empathy towards the victims, he said.
Puente added that he made the decision to resign in the first minutes after the disaster, but he announced it only after taking the most urgent and necessary, in his opinion, actions. The idea is to conduct a preliminary investigation, take the first steps to compensate victims and improve, where possible, the safety of the rail system in the short term.
Train disaster in Spain
The crash occurred on Wednesday morning near the town of Urda in the province of Toledo on the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville. A Renfe train ran into an Iryo train standing on the same track.
On the night from Wednesday to Thursday, Spanish media published fragments of recordings of communication between the center and the drivers. They show that the Adif Control Center (railway infrastructure manager) was to give the AVE train an order to resume running when the Iryo carrier's train was still on the same track.
Despite the driver's messages, the center did not issue an order to stop the Renfe train, which could have accelerated to 200 km/h. This means - as public broadcaster RTVE notes - that Adif allowed both drivers of the Renfe (AVE) and Iryo trains involved in Wednesday's disaster to resume driving, but only the driver of the Renfe train actually moved.
The AVE and Iryo high-speed trains departed Madrid's Atocha station at 8:00 a.m. and 7:54 a.m. respectively. None of them reached their destination. Both trains stopped around 8:30 a.m. due to a failure of the "LZB" automatic braking system. The drivers of both trains reported problems.
At 8:36 the control center advised the driver of the AVE train of the Renfe operator to resume driving at normal speed, which may reach up to 200 km/h on this section. Transport Minister Oscar Puente said this decision was "inexplicable" at Wednesday's press conference.
The recordings show that while the Renfe train was moving and accelerating, on the same track, the driver of the Iryo train informed the control center that she was still standing on the track.
I lost the transmission and was stopped at the semaphore entering Urda - a fragment of the recording reads. The center replied that it accepted the message and soon ordered it to "resume normal driving." The next fragment of the recording shows that the driver informed again about problems with the driving control system and said that "that's why it's still standing." The center replied: Good, when it will be possible.
At 8:53, the locomotive of the AVE train hit the last car of the standing Iryo train. The main unknown remains why Iryo was still standing on the track and why the AVE driver did not know about it.
The daily El Pais emphasized that this information gave the control center about five minutes to change its decision and prevent a disaster. "Meanwhile, AVE was rushing along a line designed for a speed of 200 km/h. During these minutes, it covered about 25 km," the newspaper wrote.
According to the government, the train collision occurred at 8:53. RTVE reported that sources close to the Iryo company claimed that the chronology was different. According to the company, at 8:38 the driver of the Iryo train was in contact with the control center, and at 8:48, i.e. at the moment indicated by the carrier as the moment of collision, the train has not yet received permission to resume travel.
