What we know about Spain’s second high-speed rail tragedy this year 

At least 68 people were killed and about 80 injured when a high-speed train ploughed into the back of a stationary train in central Spain on Wednesday.

The crash, just before 9am (08:00 GMT) near Urda, a town south of Madrid, is Spain’s second deadly high-speed rail disaster in less than a year, and comes just weeks before national elections.

The authorities have blamed an “inexplicable” order given by a rail control centre that allowed one of the trains to resume normal speed following a signalling failure.

Here is what we know about the crash:

What happened and where?

The moving train was run by Renfe, Spain’s state-owned rail company. It hit the rear of a stalled train operated by Iryo, a private player which entered the country’s high-speed railway service market in 2022.

Both trains were travelling from Madrid to Seville. The Renfe train was carrying 397 people and the Iryo train 147, according to the government of Castilla-La Mancha, the central region where the crash happened.

The trains collided on a raised section of track between Urda and the neighbouring town of Los Yebenes, near the ancient city of Toledo.

Two of the Iryo train’s carriages derailed and fell down the embankment during the collision, regional officials and emergency sources quoted by Spanish newspaper El Pais said.

The toll is the highest in a European rail accident since a 2013 derailment in the northwestern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela killed 80 people.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the site on Wednesday and declared three days of national mourning, starting on Thursday.

He pledged to get to the bottom of the crash, saying any negligence would come to light and any system failures would be met with a strong response.

At least 68 people were killed in the crash and about 80 were injured, 50 of them seriously and 15 critically, said Emiliano Garcia-Page, president of the Castilla-La Mancha regional government.

The most seriously injured people were taken to hospitals in the region and in Madrid, the capital. Others were assessed at a sports hall near the crash site, where emergency teams sorted them by the severity of their injuries before sending them home or to hospital.

Survivors treated near the scene had head wounds, facial swelling and bloodied clothing, and many were dazed, according to local media reports.

Juan Quesada, 65, who was travelling on the Renfe train to Seville for work, suffered a head injury. “A tremendous impact and so much noise, and everyone was coming at you,” he told El Pais.

A local who contributed to supplying the makeshift medical centre told the paper the scene was “like a horror movie”.

Emergency crews continue to clear the wreckage of the two trains and search for victims trapped under the rubble. Fifty-two bodies have been recovered so far.

Spain’s Civil Guard sent a disaster investigation team to the site, with evidence from the site being collected.

What caused the collision between the trains?

At about 8:30am (07:30 GMT), a computer failure knocked out LZB, the main signalling system that automatically keeps trains on the line a safe distance apart, Transport Minister Oscar Puente said.

As a result, about six trains on a 63km (39-mile) stretch stopped automatically, including the Iryo and Renfe trains. The Renfe train had been running about 25km (15.5 miles) behind the Iryo train on the same track.

Control of those trains then passed to a centre in Madrid run by Adif, the state company that manages Spain’s rail infrastructure. Its controllers had to decide when and how fast each train could move again.

At 8:36am, controllers cleared the Renfe train to resume running at its normal speed, according to the preliminary investigation by El Pais that cites train data and recordings of calls with controllers.

The Iryo train was given the same order at 8:41am but could not get moving. At 8:48am, its driver told controllers it was still stalled.

By then, the Renfe train had sped up to more than 200km/h (124mph). At 8:53am, it smashed into the stalled Iryo train.

Puente has said the crash was caused by what he called an “inexplicable” order from the control centre after the safety system failed. He said the train drivers and engineers were not to blame.

In his view, the Renfe train should never have been allowed to move while a stop signal was still showing, or should at least have been instructed to proceed slowly.

That is what Spain’s rail rules usually require. When the automatic safety system LZB goes down, trains may only move again at up to 40km/h (25mph), slow enough for the driver to spot an obstacle and stop in time.

A backup system does take over, but it detects signals only at set points along the track to determine where each train is, rather than monitoring the line continuously.

Rail engineer Jose Luis Gonzalez Vallve told the Spanish news agency EFE that the main system, which detects a train stopped ahead and can apply brakes automatically, would have prevented the crash had it been working.

According to El Pais, there was also no signal beside the track between the two trains that could have stopped the Renfe train, leaving the controllers’ instructions as the only safeguard.

The two train companies have given their own accounts. Renfe said its train moved as instructed. Sources close to Iryo told EFE its train had stopped at a signal and called controllers, as the rules require.

Adif has not yet identified the point of failure at its control centre, sources at the company told EFE.

How have train services been affected?

Adif suspended high-speed train services between Madrid and the southern region of Andalusia after the crash, although trains are still running between Madrid and the nearby city of Toledo, and between the southern cities of Malaga and Seville.

Renfe has suspended ticket sales on the Madrid-Andalusia high-speed corridor until December 13, with an alternative service between Madrid and Andalusia starting from Friday.

Why has Spain suffered two deadly high-speed crashes this year?

On January 18, a high-speed train derailed near the southern town of Adamuz, in Cordoba province, and hit an oncoming train, killing 46 people. That crash also involved Renfe and Iryo trains on the same line.

Sanchez, who leads the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), said the causes of the two crashes appeared unrelated, but that two high-speed rail accidents in one year were “unacceptable for a country like Spain”.

The Madrid-Seville line is Spain’s only high-speed route still using LZB, which dates from the line’s opening in 1992 and which the government is looking to update.

Adif was awarded a 52-month contract in 2021 to replace it with the European Union’s standard signalling system, but the work is still under way.

Spain has also seen two lower-speed train crashes this year, with one person killed in each and many others injured.

With elections just around the corner, the crash has taken on a political dimension in Spain.

On Wednesday evening, 1,500 people gathered in front of the Ministry of Transport in a protest organised by right-wing youth groups. They called on Puente to resign and clashed with police.

Sanchez has cancelled upcoming campaign rallies to deal with the crisis.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, who heads the main opposition People’s Party (PP), cancelled campaign events during the mourning period and called for a full investigation.

“This is the moment to respect the dead, the injured and their families,” he said. The PP holds a slight lead over the ruling PSOE in polls.

By contrast, Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right opposition party Vox, has not suspended campaign activities. Instead, he has adopted fiery rhetoric in response to the incident, labelling the government “a criminal organisation” and promising to take it to court.