ADAMUZ, Spain — Spanish police said Monday that at least 39 people are confirmed dead in a high-speed train collision the previous night in the south of the country, and rescue efforts were continuing.
Video and photos showed twisted train cars lying on their sides under floodlights. Passengers reported climbing out of smashed windows, with some using emergency hammers to break the windows, according to Salvador Jiménez, a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE, who was on board one of the derailed trains.
He told the network by phone Sunday that “there was a moment when it felt like an earthquake and the train had indeed derailed.”
The crash occurred when the tail end of a train carrying some 300 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails at 7:45 p.m. It slammed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to rail operator Adif.
The collision took place near Adamuz, a town in the province of Cordoba, about 370 kilometers (about 230 miles) south of Madrid.
Spanish police said 159 people were injured, of whom five were in critical condition. A further 24 were in serious condition, authorities said. Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the death toll was not final.
In Adamuz, a sports center was turned into a makeshift hospital and the Spanish Red Cross set up a help center offering assistance to emergency services and people seeking information. Members of Spain’s civil guard and civil defense worked on site throughout the night.
Officials call accident ‘strange’
Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente early Monday said the cause of the crash was unknown.
He called it “a truly strange” incident because it happened on a flat stretch of track that had been renovated in May. He also said the train that jumped the track was less than 4 years old. That train belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train, which took the brunt of the impact, was part of Spain’s public train company, Renfe.
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.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his condolences to the victims' families. “Tonight is a night of deep pain for our country,” he wrote on X.
Spain leads Europe in high-speed trains
Spain has the largest rail network in Europe for trains moving over 250 kph (155 mph), with more than 3,100 kilometers (1,900 miles) 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.
Train services Mondaynbetween Madrid and cities in Andalusia were canceled.
Spain's worst train accident this century occurred in 2013, when 80 people died after 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.
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Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain, and Naishadham from Madrid. AP journalist Barry Hatton contributed from Lisbon, Portugal.
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