At least 68 killed in high-speed train collision in Spain

At least 68 people were killed when a high-speed train ran into the back of another train that had stopped on the tracks in central Spain on Wednesday morning, the Castilla-La Mancha regional government said. The figure, given as of Wednesday evening, could still rise, according to The Guardian and The Hindu. Dozens more were injured.

The crash happened near the town of Urda in Toledo province, about 140 kilometres south of Madrid, on the high-speed line linking the capital with Seville. A Renfe AVE train carrying 397 passengers struck the rear of a stationary Iryo service with 147 people on board, according to the regional government. Both were travelling from Madrid towards Seville. Two carriages came off the track, and images from the scene showed carriages lying on their side at the foot of an embankment, DW reported.

What the minister said

Transport Minister Oscar Puente said a computer fault disabled a safety system at around 8:30 a.m., which brought trains to a halt along a 63-kilometre stretch of the line. A central control centre then told the Renfe train to move on without speed restrictions while a stop signal was still active, an instruction Puente called "inexplicable". The collision followed at 8:53 a.m., he said, adding that the train drivers were not to blame.

Investigators have yet to establish how fast the train was going when it hit, Puente said; trains can run at up to 200 km/h on that section. The Guardian reported that Spanish media said the controller responsible had been questioned by investigators on Wednesday afternoon.

Mourning and the election campaign

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking from Urda, said Spain would observe three days of official mourning from October 29 to 31. He said the government would get to the bottom of the crash and respond firmly to any failures it found, and that the cause appeared unrelated to the January disaster, Al Jazeera reported.

Both main parties suspended campaigning for next month's parliamentary election, while the far-right Vox party continued its rallies, according to The Guardian.

The injured and the rescue

Fifteen of the injured were in serious or critical condition, according to the regional government's figures as reported by Al Jazeera and The Guardian. More than 200 members of the Military Emergencies Unit were working at the site, Al Jazeera reported, and rescue teams kept searching the wreckage through the day.

The crash is Spain's second high-speed rail disaster this year. In January, a high-speed train derailed near Adamuz in Andalusia and collided with an oncoming train, killing 46 people.