What is known about the collision of two high-speed trains in Spain that left dozens dead

What is known about the collision of two high-speed trains in Spain that left dozens dead - Author, Norberto Paredes and Cristina Jiménez - Author's title, BBC News Mundo - Publication date - Reading time: 6 min Two high-speed trains collided on Wednesday morning near the town of Urda, south of Madrid. The collision involved an AVE train - operated by the state company - that had left the Spanish capital for Seville, and an Iryo train - a private company - that was traveling in the opposite direction. The accident occurred about 140 km south of Madrid, in the vicinity of the town of Urda, in the province of Toledo, at about 8:54 local time. Regional government sources informed Spanish media that the number of fatalities in the accident is already at least 68. "It is a huge number. A tragedy without relief. I am very sorry for the families. The work to dismantle and remove the wreckage of the carriages is still pending, and the firefighters predict that even more bodies will appear," said the president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page. This figure makes it the most serious railway tragedy in Spain since July 2013, when 80 people died when a high-speed train derailed in a curve on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest of the country. Emergency services are currently working against the clock to attend to the injured and search for survivors. The railway company Renfe reported that services between Madrid, Ciudad Real, and Andalusia have been suspended. What happened and what is known about the cause of the collision The accident occurred when a high-speed train traveling from Madrid towards southern Spain hit another one that apparently was stopped on the track from behind. The impact caused at least two carriages to fall onto an embankment. The public broadcaster RTVE, citing the Ministry of Transport, specified that the Renfe train was the one that hit the Iryo train from behind. Renfe is the state railway company of Spain, while Iryo is a private high-speed train operator. The Administrator of Railway Infrastructure (Adif) reported that train traffic on this line remains suspended. Eduarda, a 17-year-old who was traveling on one of the trains, told the radio network SER that there was "chaos" in the area and that she had seen victims under the trains. "I was calm, with my two cats beside me, and there was a very big braking, and I went forward with the seat. People started to come out, there were people crying, people dead under the trains could be seen everywhere," she recounted. "A lot of people who couldn't get out, screams... horror." For the moment, the causes of the collision are unknown. But according to information from the Spanish press, the government believes that a possible human error related to signaling may have caused the accident. There are reports that one of the high-speed trains collided with the other that was stopped on the tracks. How many passengers were traveling on the trains? It is believed that more than 500 people were traveling on the two accidented trains. According to Adif data, transmitted to TVE by Esther Padilla, spokesperson for the Government of Castilla-La Mancha, at the time of the collision there were 544 people on both convoys. The Iryo train (service 6076) was carrying 147 people, 146 adults, and a baby. The Renfe AVE train (service 2080) was carrying 397 passengers. What have the authorities said? The President of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, assured on social media that emergency services are working in the accident area to attend to those affected and guarantee their safety, in coordination with the involved administrations. He stated that he was "shocked by the serious railway accident that occurred in Toledo". The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, explained in a press conference that the origin of the accident was the control center. "Around 8:30 the LZB control system of the Urta station fails as a result of a communication failure of three computers in the network and over a stretch of 63 kilometers the system loses the LZB safety system, which causes the automatic stopping of all trains traveling on that stretch." "From there, the decision to resume circulation corresponds to the control center, and it is through the control center that the decision to restart the journey is made, from our point of view, inexplicable." It is at that moment that the AVE train resumes its journey at a speed at which it cannot stop. After 25 kilometers, it collides with the Iryo train, which was stopped. The minister has said that he does not attribute the events to anyone and that "the investigation must draw the conclusions." He also pointed to the accident site. Civil Guard personnel, firefighters from the provincial consortia of Toledo and Ciudad Real, Civil Protection volunteers, and health teams from the Health Service of Castilla-La Mancha have been dispatched to the scene of the incident. The government of Castilla-La Mancha reported that the number of deaths had already reached 68. It also reported 58 injured hospitalized, 15 of them very serious. For their part, the government of the Community of Madrid has activated the public hospitals of La Paz, Getafe, and 12 de Octubre to treat the injured in the railway accident, according to official sources. This accident in the province of Toledo is added to two other railway accidents that have occurred in Spain so far this year. The most serious so far occurred on January 18 in Andalusia, when the collision of two high-speed trains left 45 dead and more than 100 injured. Two days later, another accident in Catalonia caused the death of a driver in practice. The commuter train he was traveling in collided with a wall that had collapsed over the tracks. - Download the new BBC World Service app. Choose BBC News Mundo and receive news alerts, documentaries and analysis, all in one place. Important: the new application is not available in the United Kingdom or the United States. - You can also follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X and on our WhatsApp channel. - And don't forget to subscribe here to our newsletter to receive a special selection of our best content every Friday.