A high-speed train derailed, jumped onto the track in the opposite direction and slammed into an oncoming train Sunday in southern Spain, that killed at least 21 people. Dozens of others sustained injuries in the incident, the country’s transport minister said.
The tail end of an evening train traveling from Malaga to Madrid with some 300 passengers went off the rails near Córdoba at 7:45 p.m. and slammed into a train with some 200 passengers coming from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to officials.
Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente updated the death toll to 21 after midnight saying that rescuers had removed all the survivors. But Puente said there could be more victims still to be confirmed.
Andalusia regional President Juanma Moreno said 75 passengers were hospitalized, with most taken to the nearby city of Cordoba, including 15 people with serious injuries. The Spanish Red Cross set up a help center in the town of Adamuz, near the crash site, offering assistance to emergency services and people seeking information. Members of Spain’s Civil Guard and Civil Defense were also on site working in the cold, cloudless night. Only emergency services were allowed to approach the crash site.
According to Puente, the back part of the first train derailed and crashed into the head of the other train, knocking its first two carriages off the track and down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. He said the worst damage was to the front section of the Renfe train.
When asked by reporters how long an inquiry into the crash’s cause could take, he said it could be a month.
Salvador Jiménez, a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE, was on board one of the derailed trains and told the network by phone that “there was a moment when it felt like an earthquake and the train had indeed derailed.”
Passengers used emergency hammers to break the windows, and that some had walked away without serious injuries, he said. Videos from the scene show people crawling out of windows to escape the wreckage with carriages leaning at an angle.
The crash occurred in the early evening near the village of Adamuz and hundreds of survivors had to be rescued in the darkness.
Spain has the largest high-speed rail network in Europe for trains moving over 250 kph, with more than 3,100 kilometers of track, according to the European Union.
The network is a popular, competitively priced and safe mode of transport. Renfe said more than 25 million passengers took one of its high-speed trains in 2024. Adif said train services between Madrid and cities in Andalusia would not run Monday.
Spain’s worst train accident this century occurred in 2013, when 80 people were killed as a train derailed in the country’s northwest. An investigation concluded the train was traveling 179 kph (111 mph) on a stretch with an 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit when it left the tracks.
