Passengers on two high-speed trains in Spain have described scenes of blood, smoke and wreckage after a collision killed dozens of people and left many others injured.
The crash happened shortly after 08:30 on Wednesday as two trains travelled south from Madrid towards Seville. A state-owned Renfe train carrying 397 passengers struck the rear of an Iryo train carrying 147 people.
Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the Renfe train had been incorrectly instructed to proceed after a reported computer failure involving the automatic signalling system forced trains to stop on the affected section of track.
The collision occurred between the municipalities of Mora and Orgaz, about 140km south of Madrid.
For passengers, the journey had started like any other. Some were asleep, others were working on laptops or scrolling through their phones when an announcement warned of congestion on the tracks.
Tangui Binier, 22, was travelling in carriage eight of the Iryo train. His father was in carriage seven.
Their train was among six services ordered to stop at about 08:30. A few minutes later, Binier said, the train began to accelerate before coming to an abrupt halt.
“The train started speeding,” he said. then it came to a sudden halt.”
Looking outside, he saw wires falling beside the train and smoke rising behind it.
Spanish journalist Roberto Gómez was aboard the Renfe train, which had stopped more than 25km away from Binier’s location.
The stop was brief. The train began moving again, Gómez said, before the collision occurred.
Puente said the Renfe train had been ordered to continue its journey at 08:36. About 17 minutes later, the collision took place, an event he described as “truly unbelievable.”
“The impact was terrible,” Gómez told Onda Cero radio. You can imagine, the carriage is completely destroyed. All the suitcases are all over the wrecked carriage.”
Gómez suffered minor injuries but said another passenger fell on him and sustained a deep cut to the head.
He and other passengers tried to help people who had suffered serious injuries to their chests and ribs.
Rafael Barcelo was drinking coffee when the collision threw passengers into the air. “We were all thrown into the air, he said at the crash site.
Barcelo sustained a bruise on his forehead, but said his friend was more seriously injured.
He was travelling in carriage seven, which he described as one of the most severely damaged sections of the train. “I was travelling in coach seven, which is the one with more victims and the one most destroyed. I at least counted eight victims in that coach,” he said, visibly shaken.
The destruction extended beyond the carriages closest to the impact.
Salvador Arriza said seats were torn from their fittings and passengers were thrown into the air, including those who had been facing the direction of travel. “It was something brutal, describing how some people became trapped between seats.
Arriza also recalled seeing a section of railway track penetrate the roof of one carriage. He believed it might have helped reduce the train’s movement during the collision.
Sebastián Herrero was aboard the Iryo train that was struck from behind. He said the force of the impact threw him into the seats in front of him. “After we fell, there were many people with broken noses, broken arms… We started seeing smoke everywhere.”
After the initial impact, passengers in Binier’s carriage debated whether it was safe to leave the train because electrical wires were scattered outside.
Some feared another train could collide with them, but decided to get out.
It was only after stepping outside that Binier understood the scale of the disaster. “We saw the other train behind ours and we saw our train completely flipped over and the back side full of debris.”
He described seeing dead bodies, people with missing limbs and others in immediate danger.
“When I got out of the train I was in complete shock, complete awe. There were people in danger, it was very hard to see, there was dead bodies, there was missing limbs. I don’t know if that is something I will ever recover from.”
Despite the shock, Binier said passengers who were not injured began helping those trapped or hurt in the wreckage.
His father was among them, carrying a girl with a broken hip to safety.
Local residents arrived at the scene, followed by police and ambulance teams from Spain’s Civil Guard and other emergency services.
Binier described himself as fortunate to have survived with little or no physical injury, particularly after witnessing the condition of other passengers. “I’m really one of the most fortunate people and the luckiest person. I feel like just I’m so fortunate and I see other people who are not so fortunate, and I see them very close up. Sometimes you just ask yourself ‘Why me?.”
The collision has renewed questions about railway safety in Spain, which was still recovering from a high-speed train disaster near Adamuz, outside Córdoba, in January. That crash killed 46 people and occurred on the same high-speed line, further south.
Survivors of Wednesday’s collision expressed anger over what they believed was a failure to warn the Renfe train before it resumed its journey. “It isn’t possible that our train was stopped for five or 10 minutes and that the other train wasn’t told to stop, one passenger said.
“How can this happen with the technology we have?”
The survivor said passengers had received no warning and argued that the driver of the approaching train should have been alerted. “We wouldn’t have cared as long as the other train had been warned. I don’t understand this.”
Authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the collision, including the signalling failure and the decision to allow the Renfe train to proceed.
Erizia Rubyjeana
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