Trapped in stations: "They've left us stranded like dogs"

Barcelona / MadridSants station is a chaotic hive from early in the morning: crowds trying to get on the high-speed trains, the commuter service suspendedTrains have been cancelled in Seville and Cadiz, and information screens announce delays. Dozens of people have spent the night here. Most were tourists or long-distance travelers. María José Aguilera had a ticket with her family to go to Valladolid, but all trips for this Tuesday have been canceled, and they have managed to get tickets for Wednesday morning. "We arrived at the station at 5 p.m. and they wouldn't let us in until 8 p.m.," she says, sitting on the floor with a coffee. "We got a hotel and we'll go at noon to get a decent night's sleep, but everything is very expensive and full," she complains. A group of female urban dance students from Madrid is despairing because they don't know when they'll get a ticket. Their train is one of the canceled ones, and they complain that they've been told to "figure themselves out," but the buses to the Spanish capital are full and the alternative, a plane, is "astronomically expensive," so they're sitting outside Sants Cathedral. "At least we've qualified for the World Cup, we'll settle for that," they exclaim with tired faces.

A few meters away, a resident of Puigcerdá is angry because she spent the night on a bench; she was going to Madrid yesterday afternoon. "Do you think this is fair? Have you seen how they have us here, with people sleeping on the floor, without food, information, or anything? I'm ready to take the first train that appears on the screens and leave wherever it is," she says. The faces of those who had no choice but to spend the night at the station are a poem. Renfe staff distributed small bottles of water, and the Red Cross took families with small children to a sports center. A group of retirees from Toledo were headed to Miami Playa with the Imserso (Spanish Social Security Institute). They complain that they were abandoned "like dogs" at Sants station, where they arrived at 4:00 a.m. The train left them stranded near Zaragoza, and they were rescued by the UME (Mexican Emergency Medical Service) and the Civil Guard. They are waiting for a guide to arrive so they can continue their journey. "No one comes here, and we're all grown-ups," they say.

Spend the night in pavilions

Some 150 people spent the night at the Industrial Spain Sports Center, a few meters from Sants, cared for by the Red Cross. It's one of the spaces set up by Barcelona City Council to accommodate primarily families with children and elderly people who had missed their train connection. This is the case of Pilar Álvarez, 80. The power outage caused her to miss the Mediterranean cruise that was scheduled to depart at 9 p.m. yesterday. Now, her daughter is trying to find transportation to Genoa, the ship's first stop, to board her. This Madrid native speaks highly of the Red Cross staff, who have showered them with care and kindness. "I give them not a 10, but a 20," she explains, emphasizing that last night she swapped a luxury cabin for a pavilion with a mattress on the floor. "The important thing is that nothing happened to us," she says.

Fifteen Andalusian students on their end-of-year trip were also supposed to be at the crossing at this time, and they've barely gathered their things and had time to wash their faces at the sports center. They spent about twelve hours on the train leaving Seville. The blackout stranded them on a train in Castellbisbal. Without water, food, and a urinator in a plastic bottle. Aware that "no one is responsible," they do complain that they didn't have to wait so many hours to get them off the train because, by walking along the tracks, they could have taken a bus to Barcelona. Now they have bus tickets to Genoa and are confident that in a few hours it will all be "an experience worth sharing" and that the sun and the Mediterranean will make them forget their bad start to the trip.

At the other end of Barcelona, ​​at Gare du Nord, another 137 people have spent the night in the municipal sports center, where the Red Cross and firefighters also set up a space with mattresses, a hygiene kit, drinks and food, Wi-Fi, and chargers. "People were crying for chargers," says Raül Olivart, a director of the Eixample district, who coordinated the operation with district manager Elisenda Capera. Dayary Pineda, a Venezuelan living in Valencia, had come to Barcelona with her partner at the embassy to sort out her documentation. They found themselves "without a train, without communications, without anything" and considered spending the night at the station, but City Hall staff went around the stations to offer them a bed in the ward. "Thank God," he admits, this Tuesday at eight in the morning. They are practically the last to leave the ward and will have to find a way back, "by bus or BlaBlaCar," he predicts. John is an Italian from Valencia who had a train at 8:15 a.m. When he realized Sants was impossible, he tried the bus. "A twenty-year-old kid from Castellón bought me dinner because I didn't have any cash, and when I can, I'll give him a Bizum. It's embarrassing not to have any money," says John. He'd already spent the night at the pavilion and this morning he was looking for options to get home.

People on the ground in Atocha

At Madrid's Atocha station, some 150 people have slept on the floor in the AVE (high-speed train) lobby, and emergency services have provided blankets to everyone who asked for them. They have been shifting their gear to relocate those who had to leave the day before. However, hundreds of passengers are still waiting to be rehoused. Ouigo. With all their instruments on them, they spent the night in the lobby. When the power came back on, they had dinner near the station and went in at midnight to spend the night. Those affected by the chaos at Atocha are Russian tennis player Andrey Rublev, recently eliminated from the Mutua Madrid Open, which is being held these days in the Spanish capital, probably due to the defeat and the mishap when boarding the train. He avoids speaking to ARA.And don't speak Spanish, man.", he insists.

Ernesto has been traveling since Saturday night and won't arrive at his final destination: Seville, until Tuesday. He's from "Messi's city," Rosario, and took a bus to Buenos Aires. He saw the general drop in prices, so he thought it was better to go to Atocha, but found the station closed. "closer," he says. He claims he had to do it this way because neither Iryo nor Renfe were selling new tickets to go to Seville. "In Argentina, we're used to it, but my friends laugh at me for losing power in Spain," he jokes. "I came here to have peace of mind!" he laughs.