At least 39 people were killed in southern Spain on Sunday night after a high speed train derailed and collided with an oncoming service, marking the country’s deadliest rail disaster since 2013.
The crash occurred at about 7:45 p.m. local time near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba, around 360 km south of Madrid. Emergency services said 122 people were injured, with 48 still in hospital and 12 receiving intensive care.
One survivor, Ana, who was travelling back to Madrid, described scenes of panic and devastation after the derailment.
“The train tipped to one side… then everything went dark, and all I heard was screams,” she said while being treated at a Red Cross centre in Adamuz.
Limping and wrapped in a blanket, with her face covered in plasters, Ana said fellow passengers pulled her through a window while she was covered in blood. Firefighters later rescued her sister from the wreckage and both were taken to hospital.
“There were people who were fine and others who were very, very badly injured. You had them right in front of you and you knew they were going to die, and you couldn’t do anything,” she said.
Rescue efforts were hampered by the remote location of the crash, which could only be accessed via a single track road, complicating ambulance movements, according to Iñigo Vila, national emergency director at the Spanish Red Cross.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Transport Minister Oscar Puente travelled to the crash site on Monday morning.
“The death toll has risen to 39 and is not yet definitive,” Puente said on X.
State owned rail operator Renfe said around 400 passengers were on the two trains involved. The Iryo service was travelling from Malaga to Madrid, while the Alvia train was heading towards Huelva.
Renfe President Álvaro Fernandez Heredia said it was too early to determine the cause but noted the incident occurred under “strange conditions”, adding that “human error is practically ruled out.”
He said the Alvia train, travelling at about 200 km per hour, either struck the final two carriages of the derailed Iryo train or collided with debris on the line. The Iryo train was travelling at 110 km per hour and had lost a wheel that has yet to be found.
Heredia said the collision happened about 20 seconds after the derailment, leaving no time to activate an emergency brake.
The disaster is Spain’s worst train crash since 2013, when a derailment in Santiago de Compostela killed 80 people and injured 145.
More than 200 trains between Madrid and the southern Andalusia region, including services to Cordoba, Seville and Granada, were cancelled on Monday, according to public broadcaster RTVE.
Puente said the Iryo train was less than four years old and that the track had been fully renovated last May with an investment of 700 million euros. Iryo said the train was last inspected on January 15.
Spain has 3,622 km of high speed rail lines, the largest network in Europe and the second largest globally after China, according to infrastructure manager Adif. About 10 million passengers used the Madrid to Andalusia high speed route in 2024.
The rail network has faced criticism over delays linked to power outages and copper cable thefts, a recurring issue due to lines running through sparsely populated areas.
Spain opened its high speed rail network to private competition in 2020. Iryo, which began operations in 2022, is jointly owned by Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato, Air Nostrum and Globalvia, while Alvia services are operated by Renfe.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
Follow us on:
