One dead and over 80 injured after two trains collide in Sant Boi
A freight convoy derailed and hit an FGC train carrying a hundred passengers
SantA fatal Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat accident occurred yesterday evening, as a train carrying potash derailed at the entrance of the Sant Boi FGC station and impacted against the cabin of a passenger train which was just leaving the station. Due to the impact, the passenger train's driver died and about eighty people were injured.
According to the Emergency Medical Service, there were a total of 86 injured passengers, nine of whom required hospital attention. None of their lives is in danger. "We are not facing a serious situation," said the vice president of the Generalitat, Jordi Puigneró, who visited the scene. A large emergency deployment was sent to the site of the accident, including 16 ambulances, 2 helicopters, 12 police patrols and 2 psychologists, as well as other security forces. The president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, called Catalan president Pere Aragonès to express his condolences for the death of the train driver and to offer "maximum collaboration and solidarity". "All our support," Sánchez tweeted in Catalan.
The police is already investigating the causes of the accident, which occurred in an stretch where "both trains were going slowly," Puigneró has emphasised. So far, it has been established that the third carriage of the freight train "derailed for some reason" and collided with the passenger train's cabin, killing the driver.
"We heard a bang and many people fell to the ground"
Maika was one of the people who was returning home on the affected train. She explained to ARA, shortly after six o'clock: "We heard a bang, the train stopped suddenly and many people fell to the ground". At that moment, when nobody knew what was happening, there were scenes of panic with people screaming inside the carriage. Some of the passengers understood what had happened and called the emergency services.
According to Maika's account, the emergency services arrived "immediately" and emptied the carriages using ladders because the train had been tilted by the crash. They then accompanied them on foot to an esplanade where "they sorted people according to their injuries". Even so, Maika did not see many seriously injured people, but only a few people with neck pain.
Anna Pereira works at the bar El Faro, right in front of the Sant Boi Railway station. "Suddenly police cars with sirens and ambulances started to arrive and we immediately thought that something serious had happened," she explains. In addition, her daughter told her a helicopter was flying over the area. As the passengers arrived, they understood what had happened.
Work underway to reopen the service
FCG president Marta Subirà said it is not yet known when it would be possible to reopen train traffic in the area, although she said that "it will be some time". The train service runs from Plaça Espanya to Cornellà Riera and from Colònia Güell to Igualada and Manresa, and between Cornellà and Colònia Güell an alternative road service has been set up. Shuttle buses go back and forth, but there are not enough of them and passengers have to wait for a long time. Due to the incident, the C-32 motorway's Sant Boi exit has been cut in both directions and there was congestion on the BV-2002 road in Sant Boi.
The Sant Boi crash is the first fatal accident reported since the Generalitat took over the service, Subirà said.
