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Five days have passed since a train derailment killed 79 people in
Spain, and many questions remain: What caused the train to derail? Was
the train going too fast? And what did the conductor do just before the
crash? FULL STORY
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VICTIM: 'IT FELT LIKE A ROLLER COASTER'
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PHOTOS
Spanish train driver charged with 79 counts of homicide, but questions remain
July 29, 2013 -- Updated 1630 GMT (0030 HKT)
Train driver in Spain crash charged
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Garzon is charged with 79 counts of homicide by professional recklessness
- The 79 killed will be memorialized at a cathedral in Santiago de Compostela on Monday evening
- They were killed after the train derailed Wednesday near the northwestern Spanish town
They came from near and
far -- Europe, Latin America, the United States -- and had almost
reached their destination of Ferrol on the northwestern coast when the
train careened around a curve and derailed, hurling carriages into a
concrete bridge support structure.
Five days have passed
since the disaster, but many questions remain: What caused the train to
derail? Was the train going too fast? And what did the conductor do in
the moments before the crash?
The driver
The driver of the train,
Francisco Jose Garzon, was charged Sunday with 79 counts of homicide by
professional recklessness and an undetermined number of counts of
causing injury by professional recklessness.
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A court granted Garzon
conditional release, but his license to operate a train has been
suspended for six months. He also surrendered his passport and must
report to court weekly.
Many have questioned how
fast the train was traveling when its wheels left the track near
Santiago de Compostela on Wednesday evening.
Interior Minister Jorge
Fernandez Diaz told reporters Saturday there are "rational indications"
that the crash was the fault of the driver. But pressed on what those
are, he declined to provide details.
Police now have the data recorders from the train.
A somber task
Over the weekend, relatives of victims embarked on the grim but necessary task of picking up the luggage left behind.
A solemn parade of
mourners wheeled bags away from the police station in Santiago de
Compostela. The suitcases had been recovered from the wreckage scene,
their owners either dead or badly injured.
About 70 people injured
in the crash remained hospitalized Sunday, including 22 in serious
condition, a representative for the regional health department said.
Identifying the bodies
At least 75 bodies have
been identified, but it's unclear whether dozens of body parts belong to
those accounted for or those yet to be identified.
The dead include at
least 63 from Spain, said Maria Pardo Rios, spokewoman for the Galicia
regional supreme court. Some of the other victims came from the United
States, Latin America and Europe.
Myrta Fariza was one of
the two Americans killed. She and her husband were on their way to a
Catholic festival; He was injured and later released from the hospital.
"Myrta was our loving
wife, mother, sister, mother-in-law, aunt and friend, and words cannot
express our sense of loss," her family said in a statement. "To all who
knew her, Myrta provided irreplaceable love, compassion, courage,
friendship and support. We will miss her dearly."
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The other American was Ana-Maria Cordoba of Arlington, Virginia.
Forensic experts said
Saturday there are 37 body parts that must still be tested to see
whether they belong to bodies that have already been identified, or to
others not yet known.
Going too fast?
The driver of the train
has said it was traveling about 190 kilometers per hour (120 mph), the
Spanish news agency Efe and the national daily El Pais reported, citing
sources within the investigation
But a spokeswoman for
the national railway Renfe did not disclose the speed the train was
traveling on an express track, where cars can go as fast as 250 kph. But
she said the speed limit for the bend of track where the crash occurred
is 80 kph.
Rafael Catala, secretary
of state for transport and housing, told Spanish radio network Cadena
SER that the "tragedy appears to be linked to the train going too fast"
-- but that the reasons it was going so fast are not yet known.
The express passenger
service was nearing the end of a six-hour trip from Madrid to the town
of Ferrol, on the Atlantic coast, when the crash occurred, the state
railway said.
Firefighter Miguel Angel Bello said the first four minutes after he arrived on the scene were a desperate race against time.
He and fellow
firefighters smashed windows and kicked in doors to pull out the
passengers trapped inside as rail cars went up in flames.
A young girl in the wreckage called out to him.
"She was under wreckage she said she wanted to get out and go home," he said. "But she died."
'It felt like a roller coaster'
Elder Stephen Ward of Utah was headed to the coastal Spanish town, ready to start a two-year Mormon religious mission.
The last thing he remembers from the train was flying sideways out of his seat.
"We had been going
around some pretty sharp turns. We finally came to one more sharp turn,
and the train, like, completely lifted up," he said. "It was leaning
sideways. It felt like a roller coaster."
Ward, 18, blacked out when his car slammed on to its side, regaining consciousness only as he was being helped out of the train.
"I've got staples all
over my scalp, I was covered in blood," he said. "They've scrubbed most
of it off me now, but everyone was just covered in their own blood and
occasionally the blood of others. It was gruesome to say the least."
Ward was discharged from
the hospital Thursday, wearing a neck brace because of a cracked
vertebra he suffered in the crash. Lacerations on his face are stapled
shut, and there's a huge bruise on his leg.
Once he recovers, he plans to return to his missionary service.
CNN's Karl Penhaul reported from Santiago de
Compostela and Holly Yan from Atlanta. CNN's Laura Perez Maestro,
Catherine E. Shoichet, Mariano Castillo, Laura Smith-Spark, Al Goodman,
Bob Hand and Jonathan Helman contributed to this report.
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