Wednesday evening 8 p.m. - Spain is silent. A minute's silence in Madrid, in Barcelona in the northeast of the country, as well as in Seville in the southwest and in Adamuz - just ten months ago, 46 people died here in a high-speed train accident.
In Urda near Toledo, the current scene of the accident: speechlessness, bewilderment, sadness.
A country seeks solace
Urda is a small town with almost two and a half thousand inhabitants in the Toledo region. Here in the afternoon, priest José Manuel Pastrana tries to put the horror into words. The pastor had been at the scene of the accident since 10 a.m. He describes the situation as unbelievable: "With seriously injured people, with injured people who were looking for consolation. People who got out of unaffected wagons. They didn't have any physical pain, but they had enormous emotional pain given the magnitude of a tragedy that is simply shocking."
Tangui Binier is also shocked. He says he is a regular on the route and sat on the train operated by the private company Iryo, which was left on the open track after a safety system failure and was then hit by a second train at high speed. "There were people who were trapped, people with terrible injuries and all kinds of injuries. It was terrible, a very hard experience to be honest. But I thank everyone who helped us." Something like that shouldn't happen in Spain, he adds.
Contact point for those affected
Further up the town, the area around a school is cordoned off, and people are wandering around inside looking for relatives. Cared for, among others, by Red Cross employees such as Daniel Losada: "Ultimately, this is intended as a central contact point for relatives, an information point where the services are summarized that can support them and hopefully give them a little emotional security."
For example, people who have not yet been able to make contact with missing relatives. Many people were evacuated directly and taken to hospitals or health centers. It is currently complicated and sometimes very difficult to contact people who are in hospital.
Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also addressed the suffering of the relatives during his visit to the scene of the accident. Spanish society shares its pain, Sánchez explains, standing just over 250 kilometers north of the same stretch of road where 46 people lost their lives in a similar accident in January. "We have experienced two terrible tragedies in one year on the high-speed lines. There are many indications so far that the causes of the two accidents are unrelated."
Research into the causes is ongoing
Research into the causes is ongoing, Sánchez promises a thorough investigation. There are currently many signs of human error, but it is still too early to make a final judgment.
For now, the following applies: search, rescue, care - rescue workers work through the night. Including members of the Spanish military's civil protection unit, hundreds of police officers and several large cranes are in use. There are also drones with thermal imaging sensors and a dog squad to track down people in the rubble.
The work is unlikely to be completed within a few days. The state railway company Renfe has initially suspended ticket sales for high-speed trains between Madrid and Andalusia until December.
There are now three days of national mourning in Spain, but it will probably take significantly more time for the pain to even begin to subside. If it ever goes away.
