Two Spanish Trains Collide Near Toledo, At Least 30 Dead
Two high-speed trains collided near Toledo in central Spain, with authorities reporting at least 30 people killed, and a similar accident in the country just months earlier had already claimed the lives of 45 passengers.
Two high-speed passenger trains collided near Toledo in central Spain, and according to officials, at least 30 people were killed. The accident occurred several months after a crash involving the same operators that claimed the lives of dozens of people and shocked the country.
According to preliminary data, one train slammed into the rear of another that had stopped. Two carriages derailed as a result of the impact. The regional government of Castilla-La Mancha said the death toll could rise. Regional representative Ester Padilla, speaking on the state broadcaster TVE, said authorities had confirmed 10 deaths, but "this number will certainly increase." Later, according to leading media outlets, the reported death toll reached at least 30 people.
According to Padilla, the trains were travelling in the same direction from Madrid to Seville in southwestern Spain, and each carried hundreds of passengers. The train that struck the other had 397 passengers on board, while the second train had 147. The cause of the accident has not yet been established. The crash site is located on a flat stretch of track among fields, between the towns of Urda and Lebeñes. Metal debris and other materials from one of the carriages were scattered across the gravel embankment.
Spain's Health Minister Mónica García told TVE that rescuers were focusing on extracting survivors and bodies from the two most damaged carriages, and that the injured were being sent to various hospitals in the area. "This was a high-speed impact, so we expect this to be a tragedy," she said.
The accident involved a train from the state-owned company RENFE and a train from the private company IRYO, which is owned by Italian shareholders. According to Spanish media reports, the RENFE train apparently crashed into the IRYO train. IRYO said it had activated safety protocols and was working closely with the authorities. Trains from these two companies had already been involved in a fatal crash in January.
Manuel Galán, mayor of the nearby town of Urda, told TVE that civil protection had asked the municipality to prepare a sports pavilion to assist injured passengers. A military emergency unit was sent to the site to assist rescue services, firefighters and police.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez cancelled his schedule to focus on the accident. In a post on social media platform X, he wrote that he was "shocked by the serious railway disaster in Toledo," and added that services were working on site to help those affected. Sánchez, who faces a nationwide election in a month, said that all his thoughts were with the victims and their families. The president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, wrote that he was heading to the scene of the accident.
The January disaster in southern Spain, in which 45 people died, was the deadliest in the country since 2013, when 80 people were killed in an accident. That incident undermined confidence in the country's extensive high-speed rail network.
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