At Least 39 Dead After Two Trains Collide in Spain
At least 39 people were killed and dozens injured after two high-speed trains collided and derailed near Cordoba on Sunday.
Approximately 75 people were taken to hospital, including 15 “in very serious condition”, Juanma Moreno, the president of Andalusia’s regional government, said, according to The Telegraph.The accident occurred when the last three cars of a train travelling from Malaga to Madrid’s Atocha station fell off the tracks in the town of Adamuz, and crashed onto an adjacent railway line at 7.40pm local time (6.40pm GMT).Another train, a state-owned Renfe Alvia service that had been running in the opposite direction on the adjacent track, slammed into the overturned carriages and subsequently derailed, according to Óscar Puente, Spain’s transport minister.The second train, which had departed from Madrid for the South-Western port city of Huelva, had reportedly been travelling at a speed of 200 kilometres per hour at the time of the collision.The front two carriages on the Alvia train plunged four metres downward after the crash, Puente said, with 53 people inside.Emergency services said “the situation is very complex” in those train cars. A number of people were trapped in the wreckage.
One of the deceased is the driver of the second train, who was just 27 years old, according to the Spanish daily El Pais.“We are expecting a very difficult night,” said Antonio Sanz, the Andalusian minister of health, adding that the death toll “may rise”.Approximately 400 people were on board the two trains, most of whom were Spaniards travelling to and from Madrid after the weekend.Video footage circulating on social media showed rescue workers helping passengers to climb out of several mangled carriages that appeared to have partially separated from one another, with hunks of metal sticking out.Efforts to extract people from the “twisted wreck” of the trains have been complicated by the “deteriorated” state of many of the carriages.“Some carriages are in a very deteriorated, very regrettable state. I’m told it’s a twisted wreck, which makes it very difficult. Mechanical means and heavy machinery have to be used,” Moreno said.Paco Carmona, the chief of the Córdoba Fire Consortium, told the broadcaster TVE that victims sustained “cuts, bruises, contusions, open fractures”, with the rescue obstructed by “tangled masses of metal” and seats.
“We have two trains about 800 metres apart, and we have already finished removing the deceased and injured” from the train originating in Malaga, Carmona said.Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister of Spain, said the accident had caused “a night of deep pain for our country” and “no words can alleviate such immense suffering” for the families of the victims.Passengers on board the two trains described a sudden impact with shaking “like an earthquake”, then the screams of people around them.“There are many injured. I am still trembling,” Maria San José, 33, who was travelling on the train from Malaga to Madrid that derailed first, told El Pais.“And lots of banging, banging, suitcases started falling, and banging until the train stopped. We thought it had been a derailment, but when we got out we saw the twisted carriages and two carriages from the other train overturned,” she added.A passenger on the second train told TVE, “There were people screaming, their bags fell from the shelves. I was travelling to Huelva in the fourth carriage, the last, luckily.”By early Monday morning, all of the crash victims had received medical attention, Puente said in a press conference. The focus of rescue workers had turned to recovering bodies.Puente described the accident as “completely bizarre” as it occurred “on a straight stretch of road”, but declined to speculate on the cause.
The track area where the derailment took place was “supposedly in perfect condition”, having recently received an investment of more than 700 million euros (£608 million) for renovations which were completed in May, Puente said.The train bound for Madrid, which had approximately 300 people on board and was managed by the private rail company Iryo, was “barely four years old”, he added.An investigation into the “extremely strange” incident will be launched.In a statement, Iryo confirmed a train travelling on its Malaga-Madrid route had derailed.“Iryo deeply regrets what has happened and has activated all emergency protocols, working closely with the competent authorities to manage the situation,” the company said.Renfe said the crossing of the Iryo train onto the adjacent track had caused its Huelva-bound service to derail, and that its passengers were being assisted by emergency services.“Renfe and its entire team stand with the families of the affected passengers during this difficult time,” the company said.Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the community of Madrid, said, “The hospitals of the Community of Madrid and the Summa 112 [emergency care service] teams are monitoring the tragic accident in Cordoba and remain at the disposal of the Andalusian regional government.”
“At Atocha, support teams will be deployed to accompany the families,” she added.Train services between Madrid and the Andalusia region have been suspended into Monday.Adif, the state-owned manager of Spain’s railway lines, confirmed that several major railway stations across the country, including Atocha, would remain open throughout the night with designated spaces to support relatives of victims.Rafael Ángel Moreno, the mayor of Adamuz, told El Pais that the accident was “horrific”.“I saw a passenger mangled beyond recognition. We were the first to arrive, and there was a body cut in half. But there was no light; it was night. The scene is horrific,” he said.The Civil Guard has cut off access to Adamuz to facilitate the emergency services response to the incident.Spain’s Red Cross confirmed it had dispatched 10 ambulances to Adamuz and was providing medical assistance, shelter and psychological support.The regional government of Andalusia declared an emergency and deployed several mobile intensive care units and ambulances, and confirmed to El Pais that a contingent of 37 soldiers and 15 vehicles from the Spanish army was en route to assist at the scene.
A medical centre has been set up in the Adif building in Adamuz to triage and stabilise injured people before they are evacuated to nearby hospitals, Moreno said. A municipal building in the town has also been converted into a field hospital.People with minor injuries are being transported to a sport centre in Adamuz, according to Efe.More than 500 residents of Adamuz and other nearby villages have brought blankets and water to the victims, El Pais reported.European leaders including Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, offered their condolences to the families of the victims.Carmen, a passenger who was on the service bound for Madrid, said parts of the train were “completely wrecked”.“About 10 minutes after the train departed, it started shaking a lot, and it derailed from car six backwards. The power went out. We’re in car five. Luckily, it seems like everyone is okay,” she wrote on social media, adding that passengers from the damaged back three cars had been moved to the forward carriages of the train.“Those coming from behind are saying that there is a fatality. And that the last carriage is thrown off and completely wrecked. This is worse than it looked from our car,” she added.
Salvador Jimenez, a journalist with Spain’s national radio network who was on the train from Malaga, described the impact as “like an earthquake”.He said one of the carriages on his train had “completely overturned” and the windows had shattered, with rescue workers forced to use hammers to break down the remaining windows to evacuate passengers.“We left Malaga on time at 6.40pm bound for Madrid. I was in the first carriage. There was a moment when it sounded like an earthquake, and indeed, that train had derailed. They immediately called for medical personnel who could help, they used hammers to break the windows, and in the end, they evacuated us,” Jimenez told RTVE.
10:52 - 19 ژانویه 2026