Death toll in Spanish train collision rises to 40 as authorities fear more bodies could be found

Re­gion­al Span­ish of­fi­cials said Mon­day that at least 40 peo­ple are con­firmed dead in a high-speed rail col­li­sion the pre­vi­ous night in the coun­try’s south when the tail end of a train jumped the track, caus­ing an­oth­er train speed­ing past in the op­po­site di­rec­tion to de­rail.

Juan­ma Moreno, the pres­i­dent of An­dalu­sia, the south­ern Span­ish re­gion where the ac­ci­dent hap­pened, con­firmed the new death toll in an af­ter­noon press con­fer­ence. Ef­forts to re­cov­er the bod­ies from the two wrecked train cars con­tin­ued, he added.

The im­pact tossed the sec­ond train’s lead car­riages off the track, send­ing them plum­met­ing down a 4-me­ter (13-foot) slope. Some bod­ies were found hun­dreds of me­ters (feet) from the crash site, Moreno said ear­li­er in the day, de­scrib­ing the wreck­age as a “mass of twist­ed met­al” with bod­ies like­ly still to be found in­side.

Au­thor­i­ties are al­so fo­cus­ing on at­tend­ing hun­dreds of dis­traught fam­i­ly mem­bers and have asked for them to pro­vide DNA sam­ples to help iden­ti­fy vic­tims.

The crash took place Sun­day at 7:45 p.m. 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 trav­el­ing from Madrid to Huel­va, an­oth­er south­ern Span­ish city, ac­cord­ing to rail op­er­a­tor Adif.

The head of the sec­ond train, which was car­ry­ing near­ly 200 pas­sen­gers, took the brunt of the im­pact, Span­ish Trans­port Min­is­ter Ós­car Puente said. That col­li­sion knocked its first two car­riages off the track. Puente said that it ap­peared the largest num­ber of the deaths oc­curred in those car­riages.

Au­thor­i­ties said all the sur­vivors had been res­cued in the ear­ly morn­ing.

Three days of mourn­ing for a na­tion in shock

The ac­ci­dent shook a na­tion which leads Eu­rope in high-speed train mileage and takes pride in a net­work that is con­sid­ered at the cut­ting edge of rail trans­port.

Span­ish Prime Min­is­ter Pe­dro Sánchez de­clared three days of na­tion­al mourn­ing for the vic­tims of the crash.

“To­day is a day of pain for all of Spain,” Sánchez said on a vis­it to Adamuz, a vil­lage near the ac­ci­dent site, where many lo­cals helped emer­gency ser­vices han­dle the in­flux of dis­traught and hurt pas­sen­gers overnight.

Twist­ed met­al af­ter a vi­o­lent im­pact

Moreno, the re­gion­al leader, said Mon­day morn­ing that emer­gency ser­vices were still search­ing for bod­ies.

“Here at ground ze­ro, when you look at this mass of twist­ed iron, you see the vi­o­lence of the im­pact,” Moreno said. “The im­pact was so in­cred­i­bly vi­o­lent that we have found bod­ies hun­dreds of me­ters away.”

Video re­leased by the Civ­il Guard showed the worst-hit car­riages shred­ded open, train seats cast on the grav­el pack­ing un­der the tracks. One car­riage lay on its side, bent around a large con­crete pil­lar, with de­bris scat­tered around the area.

Pas­sen­gers re­port­ed climb­ing out of smashed win­dows, with some us­ing emer­gency ham­mers to break the glass.

An­dalu­sia’s re­gion­al emer­gency ser­vices said 41 peo­ple re­mained hos­pi­tal­ized, 12 of whom were in in­ten­sive care units. An­oth­er 81 pas­sen­gers were dis­charged by late Mon­day af­ter­noon, au­thor­i­ties said.

Train ser­vices Mon­day be­tween Madrid and cities in An­dalu­sia were can­celed, caus­ing large dis­rup­tions. Span­ish air­line Iberia added flights to Seville and an­oth­er two to Mala­ga to help strand­ed trav­el­ers. Some bus com­pa­nies al­so re­in­forced their ser­vices in the south.

Of­fi­cials call ac­ci­dent ‘strange’

Trans­port Min­is­ter Puente ear­ly Mon­day said the cause of the crash was un­known.

He called it “a tru­ly strange” in­ci­dent be­cause it hap­pened on a flat stretch of track that had been ren­o­vat­ed in May. He al­so said the train that jumped the track was less than 4 years old. That train be­longed to the Ital­ian-owned com­pa­ny Iryo, while the sec­ond train was part of Spain’s pub­lic train com­pa­ny, Renfe.

Ac­cord­ing to Puente, the back part of the first train de­railed and crashed in­to the head of the oth­er train. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the cause could take a month, he said.

The Span­ish Union of Rail­way Dri­vers told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that in Au­gust, it sent a let­ter 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.

Ál­varo Fer­nán­dez, the pres­i­dent of Renfe, told Span­ish pub­lic ra­dio RNE that both trains were well un­der the speed lim­it of 250 kph (155 mph); one was go­ing 205 kph (127 mph), the oth­er 210 kph (130 mph). He al­so said that “hu­man er­ror could be ruled out.”

The in­ci­dent “must be re­lat­ed to the mov­ing equip­ment of Iryo or the in­fra­struc­ture,” he said.

Iryo is­sued a state­ment on Mon­day say­ing that its train was man­u­fac­tured in 2022 and passed its lat­est safe­ty check on Jan. 15.

Iden­ti­fy­ing the vic­tims

The Civ­il Guard opened an of­fice in Cor­do­ba, the near­est city to the crash, as well as Madrid, Mala­ga, Huel­va and Seville for fam­i­ly mem­bers of the miss­ing to seek help and leave DNA sam­ples.

“There were mo­ments when we had to re­move the dead to get to the liv­ing,” Fran­cis­co Car­mona, fire­fight­er chief of Cor­do­ba, told On­da Cero ra­dio.

A sports cen­ter in Adamuz, a town in the province of Cor­do­ba, about 370 kilo­me­ters (about 230 miles) south of Madrid, was turned in­to a makeshift hos­pi­tal. The Span­ish Red Cross set up a help cen­ter of­fer­ing as­sis­tance to emer­gency ser­vices and peo­ple seek­ing in­for­ma­tion.

“The scene was hor­rif­ic. It was ter­ri­ble,” Adamuz May­or Rafael Moreno told AP and oth­er re­porters. “Peo­ple ask­ing and beg­ging for help. Those leav­ing the wreck­age. Im­ages that will al­ways stay in my mind.”

One pas­sen­ger had been treat­ed in a lo­cal hos­pi­tal along with her sis­ter be­fore she re­turned to Adamuz with hopes of find­ing her lost dog. She was limp­ing and had a small ban­dage on her cheek, as seen by an AP re­porter.

First dead­ly ac­ci­dent for Spain’s high-speed trains

Spain has spent decades in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in high-speed trains and cur­rent­ly has the largest rail net­work in Eu­rope for trains mov­ing over 250 kph (155 mph), with more than 3,900 kilo­me­ters (2,400 miles) of track, ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Union of Rail­ways.

The net­work is a pop­u­lar, com­pet­i­tive­ly priced and safe mode of trans­port. Renfe said more than 25 mil­lion pas­sen­gers took one of its high-speed trains in 2024.

Iryo be­came the first pri­vate com­peti­tor in high-speed to Renfe in Spain in 2022.

Sun­day’s ac­ci­dent was the first with deaths on a high-speed train since Spain’s high-speed rail net­work opened its first line in 1992.

Spain’s worst train ac­ci­dent this cen­tu­ry oc­curred in 2013, when 80 peo­ple died af­ter a train de­railed in the coun­try’s north­west. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­clud­ed the train was trav­el­ing 179 kph (111 mph) on a stretch with an 80 kph (50 mph) speed lim­it when it left the tracks. That stretch of track was not high speed.