By Nkiruka Nnorom with agency report
At least 64 people were killed in Spain yesterday and more than 100 others injured after two high-speed trains collided between Madrid and Seville in the Castilla-La Mancha region near Toledo.
Authorities said they expected casualty numbers to rise.
This is even as the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, has declared three days of mourning in honour of those who lost their lives in the crash.
Expressing his shock, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he was in constant communication with the Minister of Transport and with the president of Castilla-La Mancha.
Sánchez said on X that he is traveling to the crash site.
“My affection, solidarity and support to all the victims and their families,” Sánchez said.
Meanwhile, rail operator, Iryo, said its train was “struck from behind” by a Renfe train, due to causes that are still unknown,” the BBC reported. It caused the two rearmost carriages to derail and roll over into an embankment.
The crash happened about 80 miles south of Madrid, near the small town of Urda with Renfe suspending all services linking Madrid with Ciudad Real and the southern Andalusia region.
Speaking to Spanish broadcaster Cadena Der, a teenage female passenger described scenes of chaos, people screaming for help and that many were trapped in the wreckage.
Health Minister Mónica García said information from the scene showed a “significant impact that points to a major tragedy.”
Spanish Transport minister Oscar Puente, who described the accident as “truly unbelievable” finger signal problem in the accident. He said that computer failure had paused six moving trains, including the two that collided.
“In the event of a system failure, the control center takes over,” Puente said. He added that the control center decided to allow the trains to move again without speed restrictions.
Puente said the decision was made under inexplicable circumstances.
Government sources told the El Pais newspaper that “human error” was the likely cause of yesterday’s accident, which they said could be worse than the Adamuz crash in Cordoba in January in which 46 people were killed.
“A human error by a state-owned railway infrastructure company – Adif operator – in response to a malfunction in the main signaling system is the likely cause of the accident,” said the sources, who explained that the automatic system switched to manual and that it was while it was being hand-operated that the error occurred.
Reports suggested several trains in the network were brought to a halt by the safety system failure but when they were eventually given the all-clear to start moving again, the Iryo train remained stationary on the track.
Many Spanish politicians put their campaigns on hold because of the crash. Spain’s elections are scheduled for Nov. 29.
Yesterday’s crash was the third in the year after January 18 incident rhat claimed 18 lives.
The January crash which happened at Adamu had resulted in the death of 46 people when an Iryo train traveling from Malaga to Madrid with about 300 people on board jumped the tracks into the path of a Renfe train traveling in the opposite direction on an adjacent track, causing it to derail as well.
Two days later, a passenger train crashed north of Barcelona, killing one person and injuring dozens after a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks of the Rodalies Catalunya R4 line near Gelida after days of torrential rain in the area.
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