A high-speed train in southern Spain derailed on Sunday evening, colliding with another high-speed train, killing at least 42 people and injuring more than 150, Spanish authorities reported.
Recovery efforts were still ongoing, with officials saying the death toll was likely to rise. The accident was the country’s deadliest since a 2013 crash where a commuter train hurtled off the rails as it came around a bend too fast. It killed 80 people.
Then, Tuesday night, another train accident happened in northeastern Spain. This time, it killed at least one person. Here’s what to know about the two fatal crashes.
Derailment and collision
The Sunday derailment happened at 7.45pm when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails. It slammed into an incoming train travelling from Madrid to Huelva, carrying some 200 people, according to rail operator Adif.
The head of the second train took the brunt of the impact, Transport Minister Óscar Puente said. That collision knocked its first two carriages off the track and sent them plummeting down a 4-metre (13-foot) slope.
The collision took place near Adamuz, a town in the province of Cordoba, about 370km (about 230 miles) south of Madrid.
“The impact was so incredibly violent that we have found bodies hundreds of metres away,” Juan Manuel Moreno, Andalusia’s regional president, said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declared three days of national mourning starting Tuesday, when Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia visited the accident site.
Spain’s Guardia Civil is collecting DNA samples from family members who worry they have loved ones among the dead.
‘Human error could be ruled out’
Explanations about what caused the crash were scant, with an official investigation underway.
Álvaro Fernández, the president of Renfe, told Spanish public radio RNE that both trains were travelling well under the speed limit of 250km/h and “human error could be ruled out”.
Transport Minister Puente called the crash “truly strange” since it happened on a flat stretch of track that had been renovated in May.
But Puente said late Monday that officials had found a broken section of track.
“Now we have to determine if that is a cause or a consequence [of the derailment],” Puente told Spanish radio Cadena Ser.
The train that jumped the track belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train, which took the brunt of the impact, belonged to Spain’s public train company, Renfe.
Iryo said in a statement Monday that its train was manufactured in 2022 and passed its latest safety check on January 15.
The Spanish Union of Railway Drivers told the Associated Press it sent a letter in August asking Spain’s national railway operator to investigate flaws on train lines across the country and to reduce speeds at certain points until the tracks were fully repaired.
Those recommendations were made for high-speed train lines, including the one where Sunday’s accident took place, the union said.
Tuesday evening crash
On Tuesday, a Barcelona commuter train crashed after a retaining wall fell onto the tracks, Spanish regional authorities said, killing one person and injuring at least 37 others.
While Spain’s high-speed rail network generally runs smoothly and had been a source of confidence, the commuter rail service is plagued by reliability issues.
But accidents causing injury or death are not common for either.
Spain has spent decades investing heavily in high-speed trains. It currently has the largest rail network in Europe for trains travelling over 250km/h, with more than 3,900km (2,400 miles) of track, according to the International Union of Railways.
The network is a popular, competitively priced and safe mode of transport. Sunday’s accident was the first with deaths on Spain’s high-speed rail network since it opened its first line in 1992.
