Spanish opposition demands accountability in parliament after transport minister quits over train crash that killed 69
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.Óscar Puente, pictured in October, whose resignation came as two injured US students — Leah Silver-Fajardo and Austin Hartman — remained hospitalised following the crash.
Spain's transport minister has stepped down following intense political pressure after the high-speed rail disaster near Urda on 28 October, with opposition lawmakers using a congressional session to savage the government's handling of the crash that killed 54 Spaniards and 15 foreign nationals. The crash occurred when a computer failure halted trains on the Madrid-Seville line and controllers in Madrid gave a Renfe service clearance to proceed at up to 200kph into the back of a stationary Iryo train.
Opposition spokeswoman Ester Muñoz savaged Puente in Congress: 'You're so good at explaining why people die on trains, so bad at preventing it.'
The crash is Spain's second fatal high-speed rail disaster this year — a January collision on the same line killed 46 people.
British cell biologist Dr Marta Shahbazi, 41, of Cambridge, was among the dead; two California students, Austin Hartman and Leah Silver-Fajardo, face months of surgery.
