Spain reckons with second deadly train crash of the year ahead of national election

URDA, Spain (AP) — Spain’s second high-speed rail disaster this year, in which one train struck another from behind, killing 69 people, has raised fresh concerns about the safety of the country’s rail network ahead of a national election.

Search teams with sniffer dogs continued to look for victims on Thursday, a day after the collision in central Spain. Cranes shifted the carriages as police and soldiers picked through the wreckage strewn down the gravel slope where at least three train carriages were tossed by the impact.

One more body was found overnight, taking the death toll to 69, according to the regional leader of Castilla La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page. He added that 50 people remained hospitalized, while officials worked with family members to identify the dead.

“As a society, we have once again suffered a devastating blow, and we must adopt measures so that this doesn’t happen again,” Spain’s King Felipe VI said after visiting injured passengers at a hospital in Toledo.

Spain’s government declared three days of mourning starting Thursday. A minute of silence was held at various points at noon, including with lawmakers outside the Parliament and by rail workers and union leaders in Madrid’s main train station.

Testimonies of survivors filled Spanish television for a second day. Pablo López, who was on the train that was hit from behind, recounted the moment of impact and the horrific aftermath to state broadcaster TVE.

“The image I have in my head is of a person crawling on the ground after being shot out of the other train,” he said.

A second blow to Spain’s touted high-speed rail

The high-speed rail network has been considered one of Spain’s crowning achievements. It is the world’s second-largest, after China’s. Until this year, it had not experienced a deadly crash since coming into service over three decades ago.

The reputation of the Spanish railways was already tarnished when in January 46 people died after one train jumped the track and slammed into the side of another going the opposite way in southern Spain.

Then, just nine months later, came the collision Wednesday morning that turned a sleepy stretch of rail lined by olive groves near the village of Urda into a scene of carnage.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pledged an investigation and improvements to restore trust in a rail system that carried 45 million travelers last year, including millions of tourists.

“It is clear that we need to reinforce the safety of our train service to rebuild the trust in our high-speed rail,” Sánchez said Wednesday. “It is not acceptable for a country like Spain to endure two high-speed train accidents in the same year.”

Sánchez called the crash a “tragedy” when he visited the crash site a second time on Thursday, promising the victims and their families that the state would be with them.

Both deadly crashes this year took place on the same rail line between Madrid and Seville, the first of Spain’s high-speed network that opened in 1992. Each collision involved a train operated by state-owned RENFE and another operated by privately owned IRYO. Spain liberalized its high-speed rail service in 2021, with the Italian IRYO starting service the following year.

Political implications for Sánchez ahead of election

Sánchez had hoped to leverage a wave of discontent over housing costs and high rents when he called for early elections on Nov. 29.

He now faces questions about the safety of the railways, along with criticism from right-wing parties of his liberal migration policies and accusations of corruption against his party and his wife, which both he and his wife deny.

Sánchez’s main rival, conservative Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, demanded a full investigation of the crash.

Alejandro Quiroga, a professor of political science at Madrid’s Complutense University, told The Associated Press that it is too early to tell if the crash will change the minds of many voters.

“This is not good news for the Socialist Party, but it may not hurt them very much because Spaniards generally don’t like it when politicians try to take advantage of tragedies,” Quiroga said. “That could be changing, but up until now it is not seen positively.”