The collision occurred between the towns of Los Yebenes and Urda (Toledo) in Castile-La Mancha, between a convoy of the state company Renfe and a train of the private company Iryo, probably due to an error by an operator of the Railway Infrastructure Administration. Prime Minister Sánchez: "If there has been negligence, it will be known. If there have been system malfunctions, we will react with the utmost firmness"
Two high-speed trains collided in Spain, on the line connecting Madrid to the Andalusia region, in the south of the country, which was suspended. Several carriages derailed. The provisional toll speaks of at least 68 dead and 107 injured, of which 18 are in serious condition. The Farnesina has announced that 9 Italians are involved: five are in good condition, one is hospitalized and three compatriots are still missing. The two trains are a convoy of the state company Renfe and one of the private company Iryo, a subsidiary of FS International. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, from the scene of the accident, promises: "We will get to the bottom of it. If there has been negligence, we will know. If there have been malfunctions in the system, we will react with the utmost firmness." And he announces three days of national mourning in Spain.
A human error
The collision was also caused by human error. Transport Minister Oscar Puente spoke of a "failure in the computer communication system" followed by a human error at the Control Center of Adif, the Railway Infrastructure Administration, at Atocha station in Madrid. It was at the Atocha Control Center that the clash was reconstructed through "moviola" and audio communications between the control center and the trains.
The dynamics of the accident
Puente then went into detail about the dynamics. "Around approximately 8:30 am the LZB control system of the Urda station, in Toledo, failed as a result of the failure of 3 computers in the network and a 63 kilometer stretch of the 'high speed' line was left without the safety system," he explained. "This causes the automatic stop of all the trains circulating on the stretch, which at this moment were six", including the Renfe Ave and the Iryo involved in the accident. From this moment, the minister continued, "with the trains stopped, Atocha's 24-hour Adif control center system takes command." However, at 8:36 a.m. the decision was made for the Renfe train to resume running regularly. A decision defined by Puente as "an inexplicable mistake" since, further ahead, at the entrance to Urda station the Iryo train was stopped and the traffic light was red on the via ferrata. The minister explained that, between 8.36 and 8.54, the moment of the impact between the two convoys, the Renfe train reached 200 km/h covering 25 kilometres, before hitting the Iryo convoy head-on, "with the very serious result of many victims and injuries". There would also have been "time to correct the error" at the Atocha Control Center, "but it was not done".
The journey of the two trains
The collision occurred at kilometer 119+700 of the Madrid-Seville high-speed line, in the Urda area, near an Adif train depot and marshalling yard. This is the second very serious accident in 10 months on the Spanish high-speed line. The Renfe train left Madrid at 8am and the route included a single scheduled stop, in Cordoba. The Iryo train - identified as convoy 6076 - carried 146 passengers and a newborn, while the Ave train - identified as convoy 2080 - had 397 passengers on board. The injured were cared for in a field hospital set up at the site of the accident, before being transferred to the hospitals of Toledo and Alcàzar de San Juan.
Emergency telephone line and psychological support activated
Renfe has activated a telephone line, the number 900 10 10 20, as part of its assistance plan for victims of train accidents and their families. The regional government of Castile-La Mancha has put emergency protocols in place. Support services for families, including psychological assistance, have been set up in Madrid-Atocha station. Medical resources also from the Andalusia region.
Parties suspend election campaigns
Spanish parties suspended their campaign initiatives following the discount. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez canceled his commitments and Transport Minister Oscar Puente immediately left for the site of the accident.
The words of Pedro Sanchez
"All of Spain is in mourning", declared Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who arrived at the scene of the disaster together with the president of the Council of Castile-La Mancha, Emiliano Garcia-Page. "It is not acceptable, in a country like ours, to suffer two fatal high-speed accidents in one year," Sanchez acknowledged, promising to get to the bottom of it. "If there has been negligence, it will be known." Now the priority is to save lives", he added, announcing three days of national mourning. The tragedy has inevitably revived the wound opened by the Adamuz disaster: even then the safety of the network and the maintenance of the infrastructure ended up at the center of the national debate on the high-speed system of almost 4,000 kilometres, one of the symbols of Spain that runs. Precisely for tomorrow the train drivers' unions have proclaimed a day of strike, because the measures for the safety of the network agreed with Adif and Renfe have not been all implemented. Now the new accident reopens questions about the reliability of the railway system, which according to Puente is "safe", even if "errors can always occur".
