Two Trains Collide on Madrid to Seville Line, Killing Ten
A rear-end collision involving a Renfe high-speed train and an Iryo service left 544 passengers stranded near Toledo, prompting a massive emergency response.
By Kaito Sokolov ·
Ten people died when two trains collided on a railway line south of Madrid early Wednesday morning. The crash occurred near the town of Urda in Toledo province, on the route connecting the capital with Seville. Esther Padilla, a spokeswoman for the regional government of Castilla-La Mancha, confirmed the death count to Spanish public broadcaster TVE. She warned that the number of fatalities would surely rise as rescue crews continued their work.
The collision involved an AVE high-speed train operated by the state railway company Renfe and a separate train operated by private rail company Iryo. Padilla explained that both trains were traveling in the same direction. The Renfe train, carrying 397 passengers, struck the rear of the stationary Iryo train, which held 147 passengers. This impact caused two carriages to derail. Emergency service sources told the newspaper El Pais that two carriages from the Iryo train fell down an embankment during the crash.
Local authorities mobilized immediately to handle the aftermath. Manuel Galan, the mayor of Urda, stated that civil protection officials asked the town to prepare a sports pavilion to shelter those affected. Firefighters from surrounding towns joined the response alongside three medical helicopters and two mobile intensive care units, according to the newspaper El Mundo. Jose Luis Martínez-Almeida, the mayor of Madrid, announced on social media that the capital was dispatching additional emergency medical teams and firefighters to support the rescue efforts.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed shock on social media and maintained contact with Transport Minister Oscar Puente and regional president Emiliano Garcia-Page. Spain’s railway infrastructure operator, ADIF, suspended high-speed rail services between Madrid and the Andalusia region. The Civil Guard sent a specialist disaster investigation team to the site to determine the cause of the collision, which remained unclear at the time of reporting.
The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, stated that Italy’s consulate in Madrid was checking for Italian nationals among the affected individuals. The incident occurred nine months after a different train derailed near the town of Adamuz in southern Spain. That previous accident killed 45 people and marked Spain’s deadliest railway disaster since 2013, when 80 people died.
