The investigation into the accident is focusing on the condition of the train tracks.

BarcelonaAs the hours pass, Investigation into Sunday night's train crash in AdamuzThe train crash, which has already left 41 dead, more than a hundred injured, and 43 missing, is increasingly focusing on the condition of the tracks. Investigation teams are working with all hypotheses open, but have concentrated on several rail breaks detected along the section of track where the accident occurred. In an interview last night on TVE, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, admitted that, indeed, "there are pieces of broken rail in several places." "We have detected an initial break, but the crucial question is whether it is the cause or the consequence of the accident," the minister explained. In other words, the teams are now trying to determine whether the rail broke at some point and this caused the derailment, or whether, on the contrary, the train's derailment and the subsequent collision—and the dragging of all the rolling stock—damaged the tracks.

"It's hard to understand, because 20 minutes before [the accident] three other trains had passed through that same point, and the Iryo train itself, which was involved in the accident, managed to get at least five of its eight cars through that point," Puente explained. "Therefore, it doesn't seem that the rail was broken at that moment: if it broke, it broke, if it broke, it was at that moment: if it broke, it was broken at that moment: if it broke, it was broken at that moment: if it broke, it was broken at that moment: if it broke, it was broken at that moment: if it broke, it's hard to understand," the minister insisted last night. "The fact that there is broken rail at several points in the incident is just one more piece of information, but it doesn't support one theory over the other," he stated.

We will, therefore, have to wait for the first official assessments that must be made the Railway Accident Investigation Commission, the CIAF, who explained this Tuesday that he is only in the "beginnings" of the investigation, gathering information.

Minister Puente, along with several train drivers and railway experts, maintains that it is "very rare" for a train to derail on a straight track, and especially not by derailing the rear carriages. Regarding the possibility that the track renewal work—carried out in May of last year—was defective, the minister again referred to the investigation and clarified that this information will have to be explained to the CIAF (Railway Accident Investigation Commission). "It is true that the work was completed in May of last year and, therefore, it was not in its initial construction phase. Eight months have passed; it is a new track with sufficient operating time to rule out teething problems or issues that often occur in the first few days after infrastructure completion," explained Puente, who also detailed that between 2020 and 2020, millions of euros were allocated to remodel that line.

In any case, the minister also insisted that "if it is an infrastructure error," it "gave no clues." "There is no warning from the safety systems or about the track systems. Previous trains also did not report any kind of anomaly," Puente remarked, adding that the prior warnings from Adif, the infrastructure manager, in recent months also have nothing to do with the tragic event that occurred.

A crane will lift the damaged carriages

Beyond the investigation, efforts on Tuesday focused on recovering the two Alvia train cars that plunged down an embankment after being struck by Typhoon Iryo. Technical rescue teams began installing a large crane, weighing approximately 300 tons, to lift the cars, but the operation is expected to be slow due to the large amount of material to be removed and the possibility that bodies may still be trapped inside the wreckage.