A commuter train driver dies when a retaining wall collapses on a train in Gelida.
There are at least fifteen injured and three are in serious condition
San Sadurní de Anoia / BarcelonaA commuter train driver died Tuesday night and at least 37 people were injured, four of them seriously, when a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks and struck a train halfway between Gelida and Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, as confirmed by ARA. Sources close to the emergency response explain that the driver was in training. The accident involved the first car of a train on the R4 line that had departed from Sant Vicenç Calders. The accident was caused by the collapse of a retaining wall midway between the two towns. According to Adif, the railway infrastructure manager, the wall may have collapsed as a result of the storm currently affecting Catalonia. However, the head of the Fire Department's intervention, Claudi Gallardo, stated that the cause of the landslide cannot yet be confirmed.
Among those affected are five people with less serious injuries, as confirmed by the SEM (Emergency Medical Service). Some of the passengers affected by the accident were able to leave on their own. While emergency teams attend to the injured, the transfer of those who escaped injury to a safe area in the Torelló cellars is being arranged, where they will later be identified. There are approximately twenty SEM ambulances and seventy firefighters on site who have already shored up the retaining wall and the train to stabilize them. Among the firefighters working on the ground are specialists from the search and rescue team and the collapsed structures team, who had to extricate one person from inside the train. They also established a safety zone and evacuated the injured so that paramedics could treat them. The mayor of Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, Pere Vernet, explained that the train was traveling south, having departed from Sant Vicenç Calders, and was stopped due to a wall collapse in a difficult-to-access area halfway to Gelida. The injured are being taken to the hospitals in Bellvitge, Moisès Broggi, and Vilafranca. The train accident has generated 28 calls to the 112 emergency number. Around fifteen units of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) are also working in the area, including Citizen Security Units and the Regional Operational Resources Area (ARRO). Authorities have asked the public to stay away from the area where emergency teams are working. Juan Carlos Salmeron, director of the Terminus CET Transport Studies Center, explained to ARA that incidents involving retaining walls that hold back the earth closest to the tracks are becoming increasingly frequent throughout the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula due to storms that bring heavy rain. The Ministers of the Presidency, Albert Damau; Territory, Housing and Ecological Transition, Silvia Paneque; and the Interior, Núria Parlon, have traveled to the site of the accident. The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, who remains hospitalized, is in contact with him and is following the train accident in Gelida "closely," according to sources from the Catalan Government. Two derailments within minutes of each other
The R4 derailment in Gelida wasn't the only one that occurred tonight in Catalonia. On the R1 line, between Blanes and Maçanet de la Selva, another train left the tracks due to rocks on the road. All indications are that these were rocks washed down by the storm that has battered these regions since this morning. However, the incident caused no injuries. As a result, the R1 line experienced delays, and the R11 line was temporarily closed.
