At least 39 dead and 150 injured in the collision of two high-speed trains in Córdoba

MadridThe derailment of two high-speed trains – an Iryo and an Alvia operated by Renfe – in Adamuz (Córdoba) has so far left 39 dead and 152 injured. The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, must... warned that the figure "is not final" and the president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno, fears More victims will be found when the crane lifts the wrecked train cars. In fact, he explained that the force of the collision was such that bodies have been found "hundreds of meters from the point of impact." Furthermore, eleven adults and one child are in the ICU, and another 36 people are hospitalized in different hospitals for injuries sustained in the accident. So far, 74 injured people have been discharged. "The impact has been very strong," admitted Moreno, who expressed his gratitude for the outpouring of support that Andalusia is receiving.

At this point, The specific causes of the accident are unknown.The accident occurred Sunday night on a straight, flat stretch of track. Minister Puente explained early Monday morning that the accident was "extremely strange" and predicted it would take at least a month to determine what happened: "We're not talking about an old track; we're talking about new materials in good condition." This Monday morning, after spending more than three hours at the site, has regretted that "nobody knows" the causes of the accident and has asked for "prudence with hasty analyses based on mere speculation." The Railway Accident Investigation Commission, an independent body attached to the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, will determine the causes. Renfe's president, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, agreed that the origin of the accident "was not a problem of excessive speed" and warned that the conclusions will not be "immediate"—it will take "several days" to have a "conclusive answer." In an interview on Cadena SER radio, he asserted that the human error factor is practically ruled out. For its part, the Italian operator Iryo explained that the train that derailed, manufactured in 2022, had been inspected just four days prior, on January 15.

Sunday's accident is one of the worst train crashes in Europe in recent years. The worst accident in Spain was the 2013 crash in Santiago de Compostela (Galicia), which left 80 dead and more than 130 injured. Elsewhere on the continent, 98 people died in Eschede (Germany) in 1998, 46 in Podgorica (Montenegro) in 2006, and 43 in Dniproptovsk (Ukraine) in 2010.

"Thrown" off an embankment

The train tragedy in Córdoba occurred at 7:45 p.m. on Sunday when the Iryo train traveling between Málaga and Atocha (Madrid) derailed, crossed onto the continuous track, and caused the Alvia train traveling from Madrid to Huelva to derail. However, Renfe now says that it "cannot yet be concluded" whether the Alvia collided with the Iryo cars or with any other element of the track. The Alvia train is of particular concern. The first two cars, carrying 53 people, were the most severely damaged after being thrown from the train and falling down a four-meter embankment. The train cars are "completely disintegrated," and accessing them is "very complicated," according to Álvaro Fernández Heredia. It is known that a wheel came loose from the train and "has not yet been located," that both carriages were traveling below the speed limit of 250 km/h, and that the incident occurred in a matter of 20 seconds, which did not allow for the activation of the alarm or emergency braking systems.

Sánchez suspends his agenda and travels to Adamuz

The tragedy has led Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to suspend his schedule for Monday and, therefore, postpone the meeting planned for this afternoon with the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to discuss sending troops to Ukraine. He will also not meet tomorrow with the spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, Verónica Martínez Barbero, nor with the leader of ERC in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián.

The Spanish Prime Minister has traveled to the accident site to learn about the situation firsthand and has canceled his participation in the World Economic Forum in Davos. In Catalonia, the Catalan government and the Comuns party have suspended the meeting they were scheduled to hold to monitor the agreements between the two parties. The Catalan government and the Barcelona City Council have called for a minute of silence at noon in Plaça Sant Jaume in memory of the victims. In fact, most parties have suspended their appearances, with the exception of the far-right Vox party.

On the other hand, there have been numerous expressions of mourning, with the suspension of the Congress and Senate agendas, as well as moments of silence observed in front of various institutions and party headquarters, such as those of the PP and PSOE. Spanish flags are also flying at half-mast at both chambers of the Valencian Parliament (Les Corts). Meanwhile, the president of Castile and León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, postponed the press conference he had planned to call early elections and announced the new date, March 15, in a statement.

The desperation of the witnesses

Social networks They have been filled with messages of despair. People are unable to contact their families. "I still haven't heard anything. We've called all the numbers and nothing," one user said. "We need information; we have a relative who is incommunicado," another posted. Meanwhile, the municipal sports center in Adamuz has been converted into a makeshift field hospital to treat those with minor injuries, and relatives of the passengers have gone there searching for their family members and asking for information. The Civil Guard has opened an office at the Córdoba Command Headquarters so that immediate family members can provide DNA samples to compare with those of the deceased for identification, and Renfe has set up the phone number 900 10 10 20 to assist the families of those affected by the accident.