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Scores Reported Dead as Train Derails in Spain Scores Reported Dead as Train Derails in Spain
(about 7 hours later)
A high-speed passenger train that was reportedly traveling at more than double the speed limit when it derailed just outside a station in northwest Spain killed at least 77 of those on board, according to judicial sources quoted by news agencies on Thursday. Spain’s worst rail crash in decades left at least 77 people dead and dozens more injured, officials said on Thursday, as investigators tried to establish how a passenger train that some reports said was traveling at excessive speed derailed outside Santiago de Compostela.
The train, carrying 218 passengers and 4 crew members, was traveling between Madrid and Ferrol when it derailed at 8:41 p.m. on Wednesday, the Spanish national train company Renfe said in a statement. It was about two miles from the station in the city of Santiago de Compostela. Emergency workers were still picking their way through mangled debris more than 12 hours after one of Europe’s deadliest rail accidents in recent years. No official cause has been determined although many Spanish media outlets blamed the crash on the train taking a curve at about twice the maximum permitted speed.
Citing unidentified sources, the Web site of the Spanish newspaper El País reported that the train had been traveling at 110 miles per hour, but that the speed limit for the stretch of track where the derailment occurred was 50. The train derailed with such force that one car leapt 15 feet in the air and 45 feet from the tracks, the newspaper said. The train, with 218 people on board, derailed as Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain prepared for an annual festival that was canceled as local people tried to absorb the scale of the disaster.
Seventy-three people died at the accident site in the northern Spanish region of Galicia and four died later, a spokeswoman for Galicia’s Supreme Court said on Thursday morning, according to Reuters. Judges in Spain are responsible for recording deaths. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in the region, visited the scene of the accident and was to visit hospitals. “In the face of a tragedy such as just happened in Santiago de Compostela on the eve of its big day, I can only express my deepest sympathy as a Spaniard and a Galician,” he said in a written statement late Wednesday. On Thursday, Mr. Rajoy declared three days of official mourning.
Renfe said in a statement early Thursday that its technicians and those from Adif, the state-owned railroad company that reports to the Ministry of Public Works, had arrived to help in the rescue, repair tracks and “clarify the causes of the accident.” The eight-car train, which left Madrid at 3 p.m. on Wednesday was traveling to Ferrol when it derailed at 8:41 p.m., according to the Spanish train company, Renfe, which said its technicians were cooperating with the rescue and investigation operations.
Pictures from the scene showed the train lying zigzagged on its side across the tracks. At least one car had been torn open and was jammed on top of another. What appeared to be bodies were covered in makeshift blankets by the side of the tracks as emergency workers struggled to pull the dead and injured from the train’s windows as night fell. Seventy-three people were dead at the scene and four died in hospitals, said Maria Pardo Rios, a spokeswoman for the Galicia region’s main court. At least 141 people were injured — some of them critically, The Associated Press reported.
Suspicion quickly fell on human error amid suggestions that the train entered a curve at excessive speed. One of the drivers, who was trapped in the cab of the train after the accident, said that the train had taken the curve at more than twice the speed limit of 50 miles per hour, according to an unidentified investigation sources cited by the newspaper El País.
“I hope no one died because it will weigh on my conscience,” he was quoted as saying.
On Thursday, cranes were used to lift the wreckage off the tracks as rescue workers tried to ensure that all the passengers had been accounted for.
Earlier, shocked witnesses described the scale of the destruction as the dead were taken to a temporary morgue.
“The road is full of cadavers,” a radio reporter, Xaime López, said on the station Cadena Ser. “It’s striking: you almost can’t even count them.”“The road is full of cadavers,” a radio reporter, Xaime López, said on the station Cadena Ser. “It’s striking: you almost can’t even count them.”
Precise casualty figures were not immediately available but El País, citing local officials, said more than 100 people were injured, 10 to 20 of them seriously. The derailment occurred on the eve of an annual religious and cultural festival in Santiago de Compostela that attracts hordes of visitors and pilgrims, according to the region’s tourist board. The accident was Spain’s worst train crash since 1972 when 86 people were killed in the southwest of the country. In recent years, Spain has invested heavily in its rail system creating a modern network.
The Spanish government is working from the assumption that the derailment was an accident, The Associated Press reported, not an act of terrorism. A total of 191 people were killed in the 2004 bombing by Islamist extremists of four commuter trains in Madrid. Messages of condolence arrived from several capitals and, in a letter to Mr. Rajoy, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, said he was “deeply saddened” by the accident. “Such a serious accident, with so many people dead and injured, is a tragedy for Spain and provokes such deep emotions,” he said
A passenger, Sergio Prego, told Cadena Ser that the train had jumped off the tracks at a curve. “It was a disaster,” he said. “I was lucky.”

Frances Robles, Richard Berry and Elias E. Lopez contributed reporting.

Another passenger, Ricardo Montesco, who was in the second car, told a local radio station: “It happened very fast. At a curve, the train started rolling over, some cars were on top of others and a lot of people were trapped at the bottom. We had to get out from underneath the cars and we realized the train was on fire.”
If the initial casualty estimates hold, the accident will rank among Europe’s most deadly rail crashes in recent years. In 2006, an underground metro train in Valencia, Spain, derailed and killed 41 people. Excessive speed on a curve was cited as a factor.

Richard Berry and Elias E. Lopez contributed reporting.