Train disaster with 41 dead in Spain: Ministry of Internal Affairs ruled out sabotage
Kyiv • UNN
Spain is investigating a train collision that killed at least 41 people and injured over 120. The investigation is focused on a damaged rail; the sabotage version has been ruled out.
Spain's Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Tuesday ruled out sabotage, and indicated that investigators' attention in the investigation into the collision of two trains in the south of the country, which killed at least 41 people, is focused on a damaged rail on the high-speed line, UNN reports with reference to the BBC.
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Heavy equipment was involved in the search for victims. Rescuers worked two nights in a row and reported that the death toll includes three bodies still trapped in a mangled carriage.
More than 120 people were injured when carriages of a train bound for Madrid derailed and veered onto oncoming tracks, colliding with an oncoming train in Adamuz on Sunday evening.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez canceled a planned trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, vowing to get to the bottom of Spain's biggest rail disaster in decades.
Spain's King Felipe and Queen Letizia visited the crash site on Tuesday, shaking hands and speaking with emergency workers near the scene of the accident on the first of three days of national mourning. Later, members of the royal family also visited injured passengers in a hospital in the city of Cordoba.
The country's transport minister, Oscar Puente, said the death toll was "not yet final" and that officials were working to identify the dead.
Puente said the investigation could take at least a month, calling the incident "extremely strange."
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska ruled out sabotage, telling reporters it was "never considered" and stressed that all hypotheses remain open. Damaged rails were still the focus of the investigation.
Oscar Puente warned against speculation and said that many cracks had been found in the rails, but investigators had to determine whether they caused the derailment or were caused by it.
According to Spanish media reports, the investigation is currently focused on a 30-centimeter "gap" in one of the rails.
Technicians told El Mundo newspaper that a "bad" or "worn" weld "very likely" caused the train to derail.
Ignacio Barrón, head of the Spanish Commission for the Investigation of Railway Accidents (CIAF), told RTVE: "In train derailments, the interaction between the rails and the vehicle always plays a role, and that is what the commission is currently studying."
On Monday, Renfe president Álvaro Fernández Heredia seemed to rule out "human error," stating on the RNE program Las Mañanas that if "the driver makes a mistake, the system corrects it itself."
Heredia also told RNE that both trains were traveling above the maximum permissible speed on the section of track where the accident occurred.
Spanish police are examining the first carriage of the Iryo train that derailed in Adamuz.
While the investigation into the accident is ongoing, Spanish media reported that train drivers had warned about the condition of the Madrid-Andalusia line in August and demanded a speed limit of 250 km/h.
In a letter to the state railway infrastructure administrator Adif, the drivers' union reportedly stated that the increasing number and weight of high-speed trains was leading to an increase in the number of accidents.
According to the railway administration, four hundred passengers and staff were on board the two trains. Emergency services assisted 122 people, 41 of whom, including children, are still in hospital. Of these, 12 are in intensive care.
According to officials, most of the dead and injured were in the front carriages of the train bound for Huelva.
According to the transport minister, the force of the accident pushed the carriages of the second train onto an embankment.
All high-speed connections between Madrid and the southern cities of Malaga, Cordoba, Seville and Huelva have been suspended until Friday.