Train accident in Spain: Human error and no chance to brake

At least 68 passengers died in a train accident in Spain on Wednesday morning. According to state broadcaster RNE, at least more than 100 people were injured, some seriously.

At 8:54 a.m., a high-speed train from the state railway Renfe ran into another train from the private provider Iryo 118 kilometers south of Madrid on the route from Madrid to Seville. As a result, two wagons were thrown off the tracks and fell down the embankment.

Train services between Madrid and Seville have been suspended until further notice. It will probably be days before the route can be reopened. Although there was initially sadness, it is expected that the misfortune will soon dominate the primary campaign for the general election on November 29th.

The accident near the town of Urda in the province of Toledo in the Castilla-La Mancha region is the second serious accident on the route from Madrid to Andalusia in southern Spain in just a few months. In January this year, further south, an Iryo high-speed train jumped off the tracks and caused an oncoming Renfe train to derail. There were 46 deaths and over 150 injuries. The cause of the accident at that time was a rail that broke at a weld seam. The result was serious accusations against the government that it had neglected the infrastructure.

A mixture of IT problems and human error is probably to blame. After an emergency shutdown due to defective computers, the control center in Madrid gave the order to move off “normally” instead of warning people to be careful and speed at 40 km/h, even though the Iryo train was still stationary 25 kilometers away. The train driver of the Renfe high-speed train had no chance to brake in time.

Transport Minister Óscar Puente spoke on Wednesday afternoon of a “wrong decision” by the control center, which was made under “circumstances that are inexplicable to us” and which led to the collision.

“The impact was extremely violent,” Miguel Ángel Pérez Laguna, a radio editor who was on the Renfe train, reported to the Valencian regional station Capital Radio. Even in one of the rear carriages he felt the impact as if it had happened “right in front of me”. He saw the two Iryo carriages being thrown away. The two wagons weigh a total of 100 tons. In total there were 147 passengers on the Iryo train and 397 on the Renfe one.

While the rescue workers - including the Army Emergency Unit (UME) - were on site searching for the injured and survivors in the accident wagons, a call went out over the radio to donate blood in Madrid. Two assistance centers have been set up in the municipality of Urda for passengers and relatives, where they can receive medical care and psychological assistance. For those unable to travel by train, alternatives will be organized at major stations along the route. Transportation Secretary Oscar Puente immediately went to the control center to “obtain all available information about the incident.”

Spain is in the middle of the pre-election campaign for the early parliamentary elections on November 29th. The two major parties, the socialist PSOE led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the conservative Partido Popular (PP) led by challenger Alberto Núñez Feijóo, canceled all election campaign events. Sánchez appeared on X to be “shocked by the serious train accident in Toledo”. He expressed his condolences to those affected and their families. “The most important thing now is to take care of the victims and their families,” explains Feijóo.

The third strongest force in the Spanish parliament, the right-wing extremist Vox, which hopes to govern as a coalition partner with the PP, is showing less piety. She kept her appointments. Vox boss Santiago Abascal even gave an interview on private television. He spoke of a “decay of infrastructures and institutions in Spain”. This is “completely unbearable”. On