Scores Reported Dead as Train Derails in Spain
By STEPHEN CASTLE and RAVI SOMAIYA
Oscar Corral/Reuters
The authorities reported 222 passengers and crew members on a train traveling Wednesday night between Madrid and El Ferrol.
A high-speed passenger train crashed in northwestern Spain on Wednesday
night, killing at least 77 people and leaving at least 100 injured,
according to judicial sources and local news reports.
Scores Reported Dead as Train Derails in Spain
By RAVI SOMAIYA and FRANCES ROBLES
A high-speed passenger train crashed in Spain on Wednesday night,
killing at least 77 people and leaving at least 100 injured, said
judicial sources and local news reports.
Scores Reported Dead as Train Derails in Spain
Miguel Vidal/Reuters
Miguel Riopa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Monica Ferreiros/La Voz de Galicia, via Reuters
Antonio Hernandez/El Correo Gallego, via Associated Press
Monica Ferreiros/La Voz de Galicia, via Reuters
Oscar Corral/Reuters
Antonio Hernandez/El Correo Gallego, via Associated Press
Antonio Hernandez/El Correo Gallego, via Associated Press
Antonio Hernandez/El Correo Gallego, via Associated Press
Lavandeira Jr/European Pressphoto Agency
Spain’s worst rail crash in decades left at least 77 people dead and
dozens more injured, officials said on Thursday, as investigators tried
to establish how a passenger train that some reports said was traveling
at excessive speed derailed outside Santiago de Compostela.
Multimedia
The New York Times
Emergency workers were still picking their way through mangled debris
more than 12 hours after one of Europe’s deadliest rail accidents in
recent years. No official cause has been determined although many
Spanish media outlets blamed the crash on the train taking a curve at
about twice the maximum permitted speed.
The train, with 218 people on board, derailed as Santiago de Compostela
in northwest Spain prepared for an annual festival that was canceled as
local people tried to absorb the scale of the disaster.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in the region, visited the
scene of the accident and was to visit hospitals. “In the face of a
tragedy such as just happened in Santiago de Compostela on the eve of
its big day, I can only express my deepest sympathy as a Spaniard and a
Galician,” he said in a written statement late Wednesday. On Thursday,
Mr. Rajoy declared three days of official mourning.
The eight-car train, which left Madrid at 3 p.m. on Wednesday was
traveling to Ferrol when it derailed at 8:41 p.m., according to the
Spanish train company, Renfe, which said its technicians were
cooperating with the rescue and investigation operations.
Seventy-three people were dead at the scene and four died in hospitals,
said Maria Pardo Rios, a spokeswoman for the Galicia region’s main
court. At least 141 people were injured — some of them critically, The
Associated Press reported.
Suspicion quickly fell on human error amid suggestions that the train
entered a curve at excessive speed. One of the drivers, who was trapped
in the cab of the train after the accident, said that the train had
taken the curve at more than twice the speed limit of 50 miles per hour,
according to an unidentified investigation sources cited by the
newspaper El País.
“I hope no one died because it will weigh on my conscience,” he was quoted as saying.
On Thursday, cranes were used to lift the wreckage off the tracks as
rescue workers tried to ensure that all the passengers had been
accounted for.
Earlier, shocked witnesses described the scale of the destruction as the dead were taken to a temporary morgue.
“The road is full of cadavers,” a radio reporter, Xaime López, said on
the station Cadena Ser. “It’s striking: you almost can’t even count
them.”
The accident was Spain’s worst train crash since 1972 when 86 people
were killed in the southwest of the country. In recent years, Spain has
invested heavily in its rail system creating a modern network.
Messages of condolence arrived from several capitals and, in a letter to
Mr. Rajoy, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European
Commission, said he was “deeply saddened” by the accident. “Such a
serious accident, with so many people dead and injured, is a tragedy for
Spain and provokes such deep emotions,” he said
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