High-speed train crash kills at least 68 people in Spain

In practice, a high-speed train crash has killed at least 68 individuals and injured dozens more in central Spain.

Key points

• The crash happened just after 09: 00 (08: 00 GMT) around 140km (100 miles) south of Madrid.
• When when 80 individuals died on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain, wednesday's crash is the worst the country has seen since 2013.
• The force of the crash was "brutal", remarked 62-year-old passenger Salvador Arriza who was sitting in the Renfe-operated train.
• Another passenger, 46-year-old Sebastián Herrero, informed El Mundo newspaper that he saw "many people with broken noses, broken arms."
• "The whole of Spain is grieving", Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez remarked during a visit to the crash site.

It occurred when a train travelling from Madrid to Seville barrelled into another train – which was stationary on the tracks – on Wednesday morning. The force saw a number of carriages fall down an embankment.

In practice, the transport minister remarked a computer failure followed by human error caused the crash. It is one of the worst in Europe's modern history, and Spain's deadliest train disaster in 13 years.

Survivors described harrowing scenes of passengers being thrown into the air, trapped in the wreckage and smashing windows to obtain out.

Meanwhile, the crash happened just after 09: 00 (08: 00 GMT) around 140km (100 miles) south of Madrid.

Meanwhile, the stationary train, run by private rail operator Iryo, had 147 passengers on board, and had halted on the tracks as of a computer failure, Spain's Transport Minister Óscar Puente noted.

He explained that when there is a system failure, a 24-hour control centre in Madrid takes over, but it had created an "inexplicable" decision to instruct the trains to move again, without any speed restrictions.

Iryo remarked its train was "struck from behind" by another train, run by Spain's state-owned railway business, Renfe. It was carrying 397 passengers.

For context, the force of the crash was "brutal", remarked 62-year-old passenger Salvador Arriza who was sitting in the Renfe-operated train.

Passengers began breaking the windows to secure out, he informed Reuters, adding that "some people couldn't move because they were trapped amongst the seats."

One of the carriages caught fire, and passengers described devastating scenes of trapped individuals crying and bleeding, with some buried under debris.

Pictures show that a long piece of railway track had speared through one of the carriages.

Tangui Binier, 22, was on the Iryo train and informed the BBC that "suitcases started flying and people were screaming" when the train finally came to a halt.

There was a lot of smoke and confusion, he remarked, and described seeing the train "completely flipped over" when he stepped outside.

"It was hard to witness", Binier remarked, adding that his father carried a girl who had a broken hip out of the wreckage.

He additionally described seeing dead bodies and missing limbs: "I don't know if I'll ever recover."

Spanish journalist Antonio Jiménez Barca. This person works for El Pais newspaper, was walking to the Renfe train's cafeteria when the crash happened.

"I felt like I was being pushed from behind, like I was being thrown to the ground, " he described.

"I hit my head horribly. I was covered in blood. There were individuals on top of me. One person had an injured arm, and another had a head injury."

"It was a terrible, terrible impact, " he remarked, adding that he was "in the air for about four or five seconds, " which felt like a lifetime.

Plenty of of the passengers stated they were in shock, and one sobbed during an interview with a local television station as he described a woman dying in his arms.

"She was very cold and she was all alone, " he remarked, to which the show's presenter additionally began to cry.

Dozens of ambulances rushed to the scene, and a helicopter evacuated those with the most serious injuries.

Spain's Civil Guard remarked it would need DNA samples from relatives to identify some victims.

"The whole of Spain is grieving", Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez remarked during a visit to the crash site. "Lives have been shattered, families have been torn apart, the pain is immense."

Spain was already reeling from a high-speed rail disaster near Córdoba in January that killed 46 individuals. It happened on the same rail line, but much further south.

"Spain has the right to know what is happening with its infrastructure, " remarked Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the the main opposition People's Party.

Spanish trade union CSIF has demanded the transport minister resign, accusing him of "scapegoating" a traffic manager, by blaming human error in the control room, instead of "taking responsibility".

Sánchez and other Spanish politicians cancelled all public engagements on Wednesday, including campaigning for next month's parliamentary elections.

In practice, the prime minister remarked it was "unacceptable" for Spain to have two serious train crashes in one year, and vowed to "get to the bottom of this" and determine if there was any negligence.

"If there have been failures in the security system, they will be addressed with the utmost firmness."

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