Collision Near Urda Kills 68 as Spanish Officials Cite Faulty Stop Order

URDA, Spain: A high-speed train traveling from Madrid toward Seville crashed into the rear of another stopped train Wednesday morning in the province of Toledo, killing at least 68 people and injuring 58 others who required hospital treatment. Rescue crews continued working through the wreckage for survivors and remains.

The regional government for Castilla La Mancha confirmed the death toll. Spain's rail operator ADIF said the collision involved two trains carrying hundreds of passengers. Padilla said 397 people rode the RENFE train and 147 rode the IRYO service. The crash occurred on a flat stretch of track surrounded by olive fields between the towns of Urda and Los Yébenes, where two carriages left the rails.

Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the collision followed an order he called "inexplicable." He said a computer malfunction disabled a security system along a 63-kilometer stretch at 8:30 a.m., halting trains on that section. A central command center then directed the RENFE train to resume travel without speed limits, and it struck the stopped IRYO service at 8:53 a.m. Puente said a stop signal remained active and that the train should not have been cleared to move. He said the train engineers were not to blame.

Puente said investigators were still determining velocity, though the train could have been traveling at 200 kph on that portion of track. "I am not attributing responsibility to anyone, I am just stating the facts," Puente said.

Passengers described a sudden stop before the impact. Ignacio Relaño, who rode the RENFE train, told state broadcaster TVE that the cars lurched and objects scattered through the cabin. "We all felt the train abruptly slowing down and then the impact," Relaño said. "The car leaned to one side like it was about to tip over. I hit my nose, everything went flying, luggage, cell phones. Everything shook."

David Gómez, a construction worker, was working nearby with his brother and a colleague when they heard the collision and ran to the site. He told the newspaper El País that he and others cut through fences and used first-aid kits on the injured until emergency crews arrived. "As I was trying to pull a young woman out, there was a piece of a leg," Gómez said.

Rail service was suspended between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia. Spanish Health Minister Mónica García said emergency crews were concentrating on the two most damaged cars, and that the injured were being sent to hospitals across the area. "It was a high-speed impact, so we are expecting this to be a tragedy," García said. The mayor of Urda, Manuel Galán, said civil protection officials asked the town to prepare its sports pavilion for injured passengers. A military emergency brigade joined firefighters, police and ambulance crews at the scene, and medical helicopters moved casualties.

The collision was Spain's second deadly high-speed rail accident this year. In January, 46 people died in the south when an IRYO train left the track and struck an oncoming RENFE service. No fatal crash had occurred on Spain's dedicated high-speed network since it opened in 1992, until this year. Spain has laid some 3,900 kilometers of high-speed track over three decades for its 49 million residents, a total exceeded only by China, according to the International Union of Railways.

IRYO, an Italian-owned company, said in a statement that it had "activated its security protocols and is closely working with authorities." Joan Rodríguez, a spokesperson for Spain's train workers' union, told TVE that private operators entered the market recently, with IRYO beginning service in 2022, and that added traffic has strained the lines. "We are not convinced that the liberalization of the high-speed passenger rail service was matched by the necessary upkeep of the lines," Rodríguez said. "I am not saying it was a determining factor (in the crashes), but yes, the increase in use of the network is a factor to keep in mind."