Spain refuses to rule out human error over the 'inexplicable' order that sent a train into another, killing 68
Wrecked carriages thrown down an embankment near Urda, Toledo, after controllers directed a Renfe train to resume at full speed into a stationary Iryo service carrying 147 passengers.Smoke rises from derailed carriages between Los Yébenes and Urda after the crash, which emergency crews feared could surpass the Adamuz disaster, where 46 people died in January.Mangled wreckage on its side after two high-speed trains collided in Toledo province, Spain, killing at least 39 people and leaving survivors scrambling clear while passengers remained trapped.The derailed train near Urda, Toledo, where a computer failure prompted controllers to direct a Renfe service to resume at full speed — a decision Spain's Transport Minister Óscar Puente said left operators with "more…
Spain's Transport Minister Óscar Puente told reporters that controllers at the Madrid rail command centre ordered a Renfe high-speed train to resume its journey at full speed despite an active red signal — with investigators now refusing to rule out human error alongside the computer failure. More than 540 passengers were aboard the two trains when the Renfe service struck a stationary Iryo train near Toledo at 8.53am Wednesday, killing 68 and leaving over 100 injured. Three days of national mourning have been declared, and Puente himself is now facing calls to resign.
Estimates suggest the doomed Renfe train was moving at speeds of up to 200 km/h at the moment it rear-ended the stationary Iryo service.
Rail unions had already planned a 24-hour strike for Thursday, demanding 'real and definitive technical solutions' to long-standing safety failures at Renfe.
The crash is Spain's deadliest rail disaster in a decade and follows a separate high-speed collision in January that killed 46.
