Spain transport minister says he won't resign over high-speed rail disaster

Spain's transport minister notes he won't resign over the high-speed rail collision that has left at least 69 residents dead.

Key points

• In January a collision on the same Madrid-Seville route killed 46 individuals in Adamuz in southern Spain.
• Wednesday's tragedy was one of the worst rail disasters in Europe's modern history, and Spain's worst crash since 2013.
• The conservative People's Party joined calls for Puente's resignation after trade union CSIF pressed the same earlier this week.
• Leaked audio recordings published in Spanish media made public conversations between train drivers and a control centre just minutes before the crash.
• According to Puente had, the decision to instruct the trains to move again, without any speed restrictions, was "inexplicable".

Óscar Puente informed a news conference in Madrid he had "nothing to hide" while repeating the government's vow to secure to the bottom of the disaster, saying plenty of questions needed to be answered.

"My duty right now is not to talk about whether I should remain in my position, but to resolve the problem, " Puente remarked.

Notably, the transport minister has been facing calls to step down in the aftermath of the tragedy, including from political rivals, a trade union and demonstrators who protested outside the transport ministry on Wednesday night.

Dozens were killed and plenty of more injured when a state-operated Renfe high-speed train smashed into the back of another stationary train operated by the Iryo business near the town of Urda, in the central Toledo province, on Wednesday morning.

For context, a preliminary report published by transport investigators late on Thursday identified the Renfe train was travelling between 160km/h (99.4mph) and 200km/h when the collision occurred, causing its front carriage to become embedded in the tail of the stationary train.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez remarked earlier on Friday that public trust in Spain's high-speed rail network had been broken and repeated it was "unacceptable" that there had been two similar tragedies within a year.

Puente remarked on Wednesday a computer failure at concerning 08: 30 that morning led to the initial halt of six moving trains, including the two trains that subsequently collided.

Three audio recordings between Madrid's control centre and two train drivers appear to show that one high-speed train was given clearance to move even though another train had stalled on the track, regarding 25km (15 miles) ahead.

Notably, the leaking of the audio recordings has been criticised by some Spanish politicians, with Alberto Ibáñez, a member of Congress for the left-wing Sumar platform, writing on X that they were "despicable".

Meanwhile, Irene Montero – the prime ministerial candidate for the left-wing Podemos party – remarked responsibility for the crash should not be placed on one worker, adding that train drivers and experts have been warning against the liberalisation of the railway sector for years.

On Friday Puente remarked he was "not going to use any worker as a shield".

But he remarked "many questions" arose as of the tragedy and he wanted to look at them "one by one".

"If the investigation shows there is human error we will act in consequence of that, " he remarked.

As the families of victims and the survivors of the crash struggle to comprehend how it could have happened, the country is observing three days of mourning.

Notably, the conservative People's Party joined calls for Puente's resignation after trade union CSIF pressed the same earlier this week.

But Puente remarked on Friday he would not budge from his position.

"The easy thing for me would be to leave, but neither that fits with my character nor is it what the Prime Minister has asked me to do, " he remarked.

"I feel immense pain and immense sadness for the victims and their relatives. I cannot let this pain paralyse me though. We have to find solutions to this difficulty." Further reporting by Sergi Forcada Freixas.

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