Spain will observe three days of national mourning from October 29 to 31 after the Toledo high-speed crash killed at least 68 people, as investigators examine why a control centre authorised a Renfe train to resume at line speed despite a red signal.
Spain will observe three days of national mourning from October 29 to 31 after a high-speed train collision near Urda in Toledo province killed at least 68 people, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said during a visit to the crash site on Wednesday, promising a full investigation and accountability if negligence is found.
The collision happened at about 08:53 on October 28 on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line, when a Renfe AVE train struck the rear of a stationary Iryo train. Regional authorities put the toll at at least 68 dead and 58 people in hospital, including 15 in serious condition. The two trains were carrying 544 passengers between them: the Renfe service had left Madrid Atocha at 08:00 for Seville with 397 people aboard, and the Iryo service had left at 07:54 with 147 aboard. Several carriages derailed, some falling down an embankment.
The crash is the second deadly high-speed accident on the same Madrid-Andalusia corridor this year, after a collision at Adamuz in January killed 46 people. Sanchez described it as unacceptable for Spain to suffer two major high-speed accidents in one year, and said preliminary findings suggested the two accidents may have had different causes, while stressing that independent investigators and judicial authorities would make the final determination. He also pledged safety reforms if the investigation uncovered weaknesses in the railway system.
Transport Minister Oscar Puente has given the fullest account so far of what investigators are examining, and his version is the one this piece relies on for the sequence of events. He said the LZB safety system failed at about 08:30 over a 63-kilometre stretch, automatically halting about six trains, after which the Adif control centre took manual control of traffic. At 08:36, he said, the centre authorised the Renfe train to resume at line speed despite a red signal and a stationary train ahead, instead of the 40 kilometre-per-hour line-of-sight running that normally applies when safety systems fail. The train then travelled about 25 kilometres before the collision. Puente called that authorisation inexplicable, said the drivers were not to blame, and confirmed the operator who gave the go-ahead has been identified and is being questioned by the Guardia Civil alongside railway investigators. Those are preliminary findings, not a final ruling on cause or responsibility: the train's exact speed at impact has not been confirmed, and an earlier Railway Gazette report carrying a toll of 64 dead and 50 injured has been superseded by the later counts of 68 dead and 58 in hospital used here.
The stakes are practical as well as political. Rail services between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia were interrupted, rescue teams continued searching the wreckage, and opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo demanded an inquiry with all available resources and without interference, while declining to discuss political accountability while the country mourns. If the investigation confirms that a train was sent at line speed into an occupied section, the questions will turn to the procedures and supervision inside the control centre, not only to one operator's decision.
The next step is the formal investigation's findings on the sequence of decisions in the control centre, including why an instruction for the Iryo train to move, given after the Renfe service had already resumed, was not carried out. Until those findings are published, the cause remains an open investigation, and the mourning period runs through October 31.