In Spain, a high-speed train has derailed again. The tragedy comes a month before the election

Lisbon. Spain’s high-speed rail network was a source of pride. With a total length of around 4,000 km, it is the world’s largest rail network, second only to China’s. Until recently, it was also fairly safe. Everyone remembers the tragic derailment in Galicia in 2013, which claimed 80 lives, but that occurred near a high-speed line. Since that disaster, the two most serious accidents have taken place this year, roughly nine months apart.

On 18 January in Adamuz (Córdoba), the derailment of an Iryo train (a private company 51 per cent owned by Trenitalia), operating on the Málaga–Madrid route, caused a train operated by the state-owned company Renfe to derail: 46 people were killed. On 28 October, an accident involving two trains operated by the same companies occurred, this time near Urda (Toledo), but again on the route running from Madrid down to Andalusia – the first section of which was opened in 1992 to coincide with the Seville Expo. The accident resulted in 68 deaths and dozens of injuries, according to a still provisional toll. In the first accident, the cause—though investigations and expert reports are still ongoing—is believed to have been a fracture in a rail weld. In the most recent case, caution is even more warranted, but to describe what happened, the adjectives ‘inexplicable’ and ‘unlikely’ – used by the Minister for Transport, Óscar Puente, at yesterday’s press conference – would suffice.

“It is implausible,” said Puente, “that such an accident should occur: not a head-on collision, but one train crashing into another that was stationary on the tracks.” The sequence of events reconstructed so far is “inexplicable”. At around 8.30 am, the computerised control system crashed. It is an LZB system, in use since 1992 and currently being replaced by the more modern ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System). But it is not obsolete, the minister was keen to point out. When a fault occurs, trains stop automatically and only set off again if authorised by the control centre of Adif, the public body that manages the rail network. What Puente finds inexplicable happens a few minutes later. Someone decides that the trains can resume their journey, and not at so-called ‘visual speed’ – that is, at low speed – as required by protocol. The minister even cites the case of a driver who corrected the order received from the control centre and was told by the other end that he was right: visual speed was better. The Renfe train, however, had picked up speed again. It travelled for 25 km and collided with the rear carriages of the Iryo train, two of which plunged down an embankment. Within a matter of seconds, the scene described to the media by the first witnesses was hellish: corpses, severed limbs amongst the twisted metal, and small fires in some of the carriages.

Pedro Sánchez, who appeared in public that afternoon, also admitted that two incidents in one year “are unacceptable”, before announcing three days of national mourning. Standing beside him was the president of the Community of Castile-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, the ‘heretical’ Socialist who had long been calling on him to resign, arguing that the situation was unsustainable and that stubborn resistance would lead to a debacle worse not only for the government but for all Socialist local authorities. Now the Socialist Party (PSOE) is entering the final month before the 29 November elections with a caretaker government, under siege from the courts and in a state of national mourning following the second rail tragedy to have occurred within the span of a pregnancy. It is a safe bet that the controversy over the coming days will centre entirely on the causes, with the Socialists pointing to human error (the Civil Guard is questioning those believed to be responsible) and the opposition, on the other hand, emphasising the deterioration of public services, which easily shifts from a physical issue to a genuine ‘moral issue’. The PSOE was even climbing back up in the polls, but keep an eye on the figures over the next few days.