Spain’s transport minister has refused to resign after a high-speed train collision in central Spain killed at least 69 people, the country’s second deadly crash on the same railway line this year.
The collision happened on Wednesday morning, 28 October, near the town of Urda in Toledo province, on the Madrid to Seville high-speed line. A train operated by state-owned Renfe ran into the back of a stationary train operated by private company Iryo, derailing carriages. More than 200 people were injured, and 39 remained in hospital on Friday. Authorities had carried out 49 autopsies but formally identified only five people, with dozens of missing-person reports still open, and regional officials warned the death toll could still rise. Investigators have removed the trains’ black boxes and a judge is also investigating the crash.
According to the account given by the government, the chain of events began at 8:31 a.m. on Wednesday, when the communication system behind the line’s LZB safety system went down. The LZB system tracks trains with digital sensors and can apply brakes automatically to prevent a collision. With it out of action, controllers at a control centre in Madrid took over responsibility for a 63-kilometre stretch of track. At 8:36 a.m., a controller told the Renfe train it could start running again at normal speed, even though safety protocol in such circumstances limits trains to 40 kilometres per hour. The Iryo train, around 25 kilometres further down the line, tried to restart but could not, and the Renfe train was not told to stop. The collision followed at 8:53 a.m., with investigators saying the Renfe train was travelling at between 160 and 200 kilometres per hour when it struck the other train.
Transport Minister Oscar Puente faced calls to step down at a press conference on Friday, 30 October, and rejected them, saying his duty was to solve the problem and explain exactly what happened. He described the controller’s decision to let the train restart at full speed as inexplicable and erroneous, but said he would not use a worker as a shield and noted that the information pointed to a mistake in the control centre. Railway unions have pushed back, saying controllers are working under increasingly poor conditions with workloads beyond safe staffing levels, and that the real issue is a safety system that fails regularly. Puente said the LZB system had gone offline 170 times this year, which he described as normal and in line with recent annual averages.
The crash has reopened a wider debate about Spain’s high-speed network, the world’s second largest, which had recorded no fatal crashes since entering service more than three decades ago until this year. In January, a train derailed and struck another train travelling in the opposite direction on the same Madrid-Seville line near Adamuz, killing 46 people, and that crash remains under investigation. Both of this year’s collisions involved a Renfe train and an Iryo train. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, visiting the crash site on Friday, said it was unacceptable for a country with Spain’s strong high-speed railway to have two accidents of this type in the same year. The disaster is Spain’s deadliest train accident since 2013, and it comes as the country prepares for a general election on 29 November. The replacement signalling system for the Madrid-Seville line is expected to begin working in early 2027.
Sources: Associated Press (via The Korea Times) and Reuters (via Channel NewsAsia).
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/spain-transport-minister-resign-train-crash-6507826
The featured image is an illustrative stock photo, not a photograph of the crash.
