By JOSEPH WILSON and SUMAN NAISHADHAM
In a tragic incident on Tuesday, a commuter train in Barcelona was derailed after a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks, regional authorities in Spain reported. The accident resulted in the death of at least one person and left 37 others injured.
This calamity in the northeastern region of Catalonia occurred just two days following another devastating train collision in southern Spain, which claimed at least 42 lives and injured numerous others.
As the nation observed three days of mourning, emergency responders continued their search for survivors amidst the wreckage from Sunday’s catastrophic train accident, located approximately 497 miles from the scene of Tuesday’s crash.
According to Catalonia’s emergency services, of the 37 individuals impacted by the latest crash, five sustained serious injuries, while six others were in a less critical condition. The response team deployed 20 ambulances to the crash site, quickly transporting the injured to nearby hospitals. Regional firefighting units noted that the majority of those hurt were passengers in the train’s first carriage.
Expressing his concern, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed the incident on social media platform X, extending his “affection and solidarity” to the victims and their families.
While Spain’s high-speed rail network generally runs smoothly, and at least until Sunday had been a source of confidence, the commuter rail service is plagued by reliability issues. However, accidents causing injury or death are not common in either.
The commuter train crashed near the town of Gelida, located about 35 minutes outside of Barcelona.
Spain’s railway operator ADIF said the containment wall likely collapsed due to heavy rainfall that swept across the northeastern Spanish region this week. Commuter train service was canceled along the line, it said.
More bodies discovered in Sunday derailment
The Sunday crash happened at 7:45 p.m. when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, derailed and crashed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern city, according to rail operator Adif. Authorities were still recovering more bodies on Tuesday.
Fidel Sáez lost his mother in the wreck, but his two children, his brother and a nephew survived. Their trip to the capital to see musical “The Lion King” turned into a nightmare on the way home.
“My brother has been taken off respirator. He told me that it was a miracle that he is alive. He had to get the children through a window,” Sáez told national TV broadcaster TVE. “He also asked me to tell the story of our mother, how good she was.”
Health authorities said 39 people remained in hospitals on Tuesday morning, while 83 people were treated and discharged.
Among them was Emil Johnson, a Swedish citizen based in Malaga who was traveling to Madrid to renew his passport.
“It was probably two, three seconds. And everything was broken,” Jonsson, sitting in a wheelchair due to bruises on his ribs and back and dressed in part of a hospital gown, told reporters. “When we crashed, I didn’t know who was alive and who was dead.”
Amid the tragedy, it emerged that a 6-year-old girl who survived the wreck was virtually unscathed, while her parents, brother and cousin all perished.
The mayor of their hometown called her survival a “miracle.”
Carriages came off tracks
The front of the second train, which was carrying 184 people, took the brunt of the impact, which knocked its first two carriages off the track and down a 13-foot slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of feet from the crash site, according to Andalusia regional President Juanma Moreno.
Associated Press images taken Tuesday showed the remains of the first two cars of the second train, severed from the rest of the train and lying beside the tracks. Train seats had been ejected onto the rocks that provide packing under the tracks.
Further along the tracks, Civil Guard officers inspected the interior of the first train with dogs as passengers’ belongings lay scattered on the floor, according to the video distributed by authorities. The last carriage was lying on its side on the tracks, and the second-to-last carriage was leaning to one side with all its windows shattered.
‘All hypotheses are open’
Officials are continuing to investigate the causes of the accident that Puente has called “truly strange” since it occurred on a straight line and neither train was speeding.
Puente said officials had found a broken section of track that could possibly be related to the accident’s origin, while insisting that is just a hypothesis and that it could take weeks to reach any conclusions.
“Now we have to determine if that is a cause or a consequence (of the derailment),” Puente told Spanish radio Cadena Ser.
At this time, “all hypotheses are open,” Grande Marlaska told a press conference. Accident investigators will analyze “the rails at the point where the derailment began and inspect the wheels” of the first train in a laboratory, he added.
The train that jumped the track belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train belonged to Spain’s public train company, Renfe.
Iryo said in a statement Monday that its train was manufactured in 2022 and had passed a safety check on Jan. 15.
Puente and Renfe president Álvaro Fernández said that both trains were traveling well under the speed limit of 155 mph and “human error could be ruled out.”
The accident shook a nation that leads Europe in high-speed train mileage and takes pride in a network that is considered at the cutting edge of rail transport.
“It is undoubtedly a hard blow, and I have to work so it doesn’t affect the credibility and strength of the network,” Puente told Spanish national radio RNE on Tuesday when asked about the damage to the reputation of the rail system.
Royals visit scene
Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia visited the scene of the accident, where they greeted emergency workers as well as some local residents who helped in the initial stages of the rescue. Afterward, they went to hospital in Cordoba where many of the injured remain under care.
“We are all responsible for not looking away when the debris of a catastrophe is being cleared away,” said Letizia to reporters after the visit.
Spain’s Civil Guard is collecting DNA samples from family members who fear they have loved ones among the unidentified dead.
High-speed trains resumed service Tuesday from Madrid to Sevilla and Malaga, the largest cities in Andalusia, Spain’s most populous region, but passengers had to travel a stretch of the journey by buses provided by the rail service. Minister Puente said that the normal train service won’t resume until early February.
Spanish airline Iberia added more flights to southern cities until Sunday to help stranded travelers. Some bus companies also reinforced their services in the south.
Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. Naishadham reported from Madrid.
