Two high-speed trains collided near Toledo in central Spain on Wednesday, killing 69 people weeks before the snap general election called by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.1,4,5
Rescue workers recovered 69 bodies from wreckage strewn over the tracks and down an embankment near Urda, a town close to Toledo, and near Los Yébenes. The formal investigation has only just been launched, but the crash has already shattered confidence in the rail network and in the government because it was the second deadly collision on the same line south from Madrid in less than a year.1,4,7
The earlier crash, near Adamuz by Cordoba, killed 46 people. The BBC put the interval at nine months and Al Jazeera put it at 10 months. An investigation into the January crash in Adamuz is still open, with initial reports suggesting there was a crack in the rails.1,7
Transport Minister Oscar Puente began suggesting from the first hours after the collision that "human error" was to blame and on Friday appeared before the press for a second time to set out what he called the "objective facts." He rejected talk of chronic underinvestment and said Spain's high-speed signalling safety system, the LZB, was neither old nor inadequate, noting that Germany and Austria use the same system. He said it had failed 170 times so far this year in Spain but called that "normal" and around the EU average.1
The central question, Puente said, is what happens when the system fails and control shifts to manual operation. In this case, he said, a controller instructed a stalled train to restart and cleared it to advance at up to 160km/h even though a second train was stuck on the line ahead. The impending collision was clear from audio calls and on big screens in the control centre in Madrid. "They worked. We checked. They could see what was happening," Puente said. But the advancing train was never ordered to stop. "I'm no judge... But these are the facts," he said.1,3
The opposition People's Party is among those calling for Puente to resign as a "moral" and "ethical" move. Puente rejected that call, describing it as his "duty" to remain as minister. "I'll face up to things, explain, elucidate," he said. "I'll think how to improve the system, and give confidence to those who want to travel by train and feel calm and safe."1
Sánchez was already facing public anger over alleged corruption and housing costs, according to the BBC. Allegations of corruption against the prime minister's close relatives persist and are denied. This summer saw a sudden influx of migrants from Morocco to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, which drew accusations of incompetence and underfunding from right-wing opponents, and later a video of a pensioner being forcibly evicted from her home went viral and prompted street protests. The death of Maricarmen Abascal, evicted from her home of more than 70 years, prompted widespread housing protests, after which Sánchez called an early election.1
His chances of winning the vote looked slim even before the train crash. Now they have plummeted. Most recent polls showed the centre-right People's Party coming first and forming a coalition with Vox. "They have this majority in almost 95% of the simulations we have done," Pablo Simon of Madrid's Carlos III University said. Sánchez had been running a positive campaign aimed at persuading apathetic voters to vote Socialist. "They've totally lost control of the agenda and the emotion of this campaign," Simon said. "It's going to be extremely difficult now. There is this general mood of decay, of a country that's not working properly. A depression."1
"This is not only a very serious accident, but the second in a very short time," Paco Camas of the pollster Ipsos said. "It destroys people's confidence not only in the railways but institutions in general," Camas said. "And in Spain when such things happen, we know that people blame their government." France 24 said the crash dealt a serious blow to Sánchez's campaign and led to accusations from experts and the public of underinvestment after years of rapid network expansion, a claim Puente denied.1,4
In Toledo, the mood was nervous, where Paloma had just pulled in on a half empty train. "We all travelled in silence and really sad," Paloma said at the city station. "This crash will change all of our votes, completely," Paloma said. "We'll shift from the left wing to the right. Because of everything that's happened." Lucia, who takes the high-speed AVE into Madrid each day, said she was also scared. "This was human error. But there's been two accidents now with more than 100 dead," she said. "Things here are really bad. They have to change."1
There have already been small protests over the crash in Madrid led by groups described by the BBC as far-right, and large numbers of police were on standby at the weekend ahead of further potential clashes organised online. Families were holding out hope for loved ones reported missing, while rescuers continued to search the wreckage. Politico reported that a former Spanish employment minister was among those killed in the crash.1,5,6,8
Survivors of earlier crashes said more must be done to prevent further deaths. Cristobal Gonzalez, who suffered multiple injuries when a high-speed train that should have been travelling at 80 kilometres per hour left the line at 200km/h at Angrois near Santiago de Compostela in 2013, killing 80 people, said the mental effects remained. "I survived but the mental scars are still there all these years later. We must stop more accidents happening," Gonzalez said. "I will keep what happened to myself. It is very hard to share it, even if I wanted to - it is something that defies imagination," said Gonzalez, who suffers from post-traumatic stress. "Now we have seen three dreadful crashes in Spain, at Angrois, Adamuz and Urda. They will keep happening if we do not act," Gonzalez said. "At Angrois, the driver was going too fast; at Adamuz, an investigation said there was a problem on the track; and at Urda it might have been human error and a problem with the control system. Whatever, we must stop these crashes happening by investing more in safety."7
Santiago Rosendo, who was a passenger on the Renfe train involved in the Adamuz crash in January while travelling alone from Madrid to Huelva, described panic when the trains collided. "There was a sudden stop - a very sudden stop - then following that, a loud crash. Then the train moved from side to side until the train slid onto its side and we were left entirely in the dark. The first thing I saw when I got off the train was a body," he said. "I cannot believe that this has happened again on the same line. We have to do something," he said. Investigations into both this year's crashes are still open and the election is still to come.7,1
