Spain's transport minister resigns six days after a high-speed train crash near Toledo killed 69 people
The crash site near Urda, Toledo, on 28 October, where Spain's LZB collision-prevention system had failed 170 times in the year before the disaster, transport minister Oscar Puente revealed.Pedro Sánchez, Spain's Prime Minister, flanked by two officials on 29 October, as polls showed his Socialist-led coalition collapsing after the crash killed Cambridge researcher Dr Marta Shahbazi among at least 69 people.
Oscar Puente, Spain's transport minister, has stepped down in the wake of the Toledo rail disaster, which unfolded six days ago when a high-speed train travelling near Urda ploughed into a stationary service, leaving 69 dead and more than 100 injured. It is the second fatal rail incident in Spain this year, after a separate crash claimed 46 lives. Puente had attributed the collision to an 'inexplicable' instruction from a central command centre following the failure of a safety system.
More than 500 passengers were aboard the two trains, bound from Madrid to Seville, when the state-run Renfe service struck the stationary IRYO train.
Among the dead are four Americans, one Canadian, and two Australians, with three bodies still unidentified in the wreckage.
Cambridge scientist Dr Marta Shahbazi, 41, was killed travelling to collect a prize; her aunt said 'she was a light for all of us.'
