Catastrophic train collision/crash in Spain, 39 dead many injured

This is from the Spanish papers


The railway accident investigation commission (CIAF) has ordered the immediate transfer to a laboratory in Madrid of "the rails at the point where the derailment" of the Iryo Málaga-Madrid train began. It was this incident that then led to the collision with the Renfe Alvia Madrid-Huelva train, with 42 confirmed fatal victims so far.


According to commission sources, technicians consider it essential to examine the track in a controlled, interference-free environment, after the Guardia Civil's forensic unit confirmed the presence of "breaks" and/or "alterations", to establish whether the damage predated the accident. The aim is to establish whether the track was the cause of the incident on Sunday, 18 January.


The CIAF team have already held meetings with several police units, the duty judge and the railway companies involved in the accident (Iryo and Renfe), as well as with the rail infrastructure company of Spain (Adif). Together, they have been coordinating the "removal and custody" of the material, which was renovated very recently - in May 2025, thanks to a large investment.


Once in the laboratory in Madrid, these "complete sections" of the track, that have been found overturned and completely detached from the concrete sleepers on which they were supported, will be analysed.
The commission has decided to transfer at least 500 metres of track from line 1 (in the direction of Madrid). The material covers the distance from the exact place of the collision to the place where a "clean break" almost one metre in length has been found.


This is currently the focus of the CIAF's investigation, but it is not the only line of inquiry. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Transport confirmed that the commission team have already given orders to inspect the wheels of the Iryo train and "other trains that have recently travelled" through the accident site. This is an "advanced technical" procedure in which wear and cracks in the wheels and axles are detected.


The commission suspects that the "interaction" between Iryo's "running gear" (the axle and wheel system) and the previously damaged "infrastructure" (the track) may have been a key factor in the fatal accident. In other words, some component may have "touched" the defective track, causing it to become dislodged.
 

'All hypotheses'​


While awaiting the results of all these tests, CIAF technicians, who have been working on site since early Monday morning, have already confirmed some preliminary data. The accident was caused by the "derailment of the last three carriages of the Iryo high-speed train", which was travelling on track 1 towards Madrid, at the entrance to Adamuz station on the 010 Madrid-Seville line.


"The derailed carriages of the convoy bound for Atocha moved sideways, invading the gauge of track 2, on which the Renfe Alvia train was travelling in the opposite direction at that moment," the specialists have concluded. The number of passengers on board the two trains, according to interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, was 527 passengers plus staff, a figure much higher than that given by the Ministry of Transport, which initially said that there were 486 people on the trains: 300 on the Iryo and 186 on the Alvia.


"At the moment, as we are in the initial phase, all hypotheses regarding the possible causes of the accident are open," Grande-Marlaska said. The minister added that, according to regulations, the CIAF has one year to publish the final report of the investigation.
 
...and the second Train crash 2 days later

A train accident in the province of Barcelona on Tuesday night came as a shock to Spain as the country is still recovering from the Adamuz tragedy on Sunday. A Rodalies train - the commuter train service run by the Catalan government - on the R4 line collided shortly before 10pm with a retaining wall that had come loose as a result of the rain and wind affecting much of Catalonia, falling onto the track between Gelida and Sant Sadurní d'Anoia stations. The train driver was killed in the collision.


The train was carrying more than fifty passengers at the time of the impact, 37 of whom had to be assisted by the medical services as they had suffered injuries of varying degrees of severity. Five of the injured are in serious condition, six are less seriously injured and the condition of the other 26 is minor, according to sources from the Generalitat de Catalunya's fire brigade. All were evacuated to the Moisès Broggi, Bellvitge and Vilafranca hospitals.


The head of fire brigade operation, Claudi Gallardo, said that the worst part of the impact was taken by the first carriage of the train, where most of the injuries occurred. According to other sources, in addition to the driver who died, there were two other Renfe workers inside the train, thought to be trainee drivers who were making this journey as part of their professional training. Informal information suggested after midnight that the person killed could have been one of them and not the main driver, although this was not confirmed by the Generalitat.


Train operator Renfe linked the accident to the heavy rainfall and the accumulation of water in the hours prior to the accident, which is what caused the retaining wall to fall onto the track. Several ambulances and 15 fire brigades were sent to the area to attend to the injured and remove obstacles from the track.
 
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