Rescuers pulled bodies from mangled train carriages through Sunday night after a derailed high-speed service crossed tracks and collided with an oncoming train in southern Spain, killing at least 21 people.
The disaster struck around 6:50pm near Adamuz when an Iryo train from Málaga to Madrid jumped the rails just 10 minutes into its journey. The derailed train crashed across onto the adjacent track, directly into the path of a Madrid-Huelva service operated by Renfe.
The force sent the second train down an embankment. Seventy-five people reached hospital, 15 fighting for their lives, Andalucía’s regional chief Juanma Moreno said early Monday.
Passengers smashed carriage windows with emergency hammers to escape the wreckage. Maria San José, 33, who was aboard the Iryo train, told El País she was still shaking hours later. “There are many injured – I am still trembling,” she said.
The Renfe train was travelling at 200kmh when it was hit. Inside the crumpled carriages, rescue teams faced a grim task.
“There are still people trapped,” Córdoba fire chief Paco Carmona told TVE. “The operation is concentrating on getting people out of areas which are very narrow. We have to remove the bodies to reach anyone who is still alive. It is proving to be a complicated task.”
One passenger on the second train described chaos in the moments after impact. “There were people screaming, their bags fell from the shelves,” the unidentified traveller told TVE. “I was travelling to Huelva in the fourth carriage – the last, luckily.”
A journalist from public broadcaster RNE riding one of the trains said the collision felt like an earthquake. Another passenger, Carmen, posted on X that her train started shaking violently 10 minutes after leaving Córdoba. “The train started to shake a lot, and it derailed from coach six behind us. The lights went out,” she wrote.
In darkened carriages, an Iryo official told passengers to stay in their seats and save their phone batteries for torches. One passenger wrote on X: “In our carriage we’re well but we don’t know about the other carriages. There’s smoke and they’re calling for a doctor.”
Transport Minister Óscar Puente said investigators had no explanation yet for why a train would derail on straight track. The stretch had been renewed in May. He called the accident “really strange”. Most victims were in the first two carriages of the Renfe train, which bore the brunt of the collision.
Around 400 people were aboard both trains, Spanish media reported. Residents of Adamuz, a town of 5,000, opened a reception centre and brought food and blankets as temperatures dropped to 6C overnight.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez cleared his Monday schedule, calling it “a night of deep pain” for Spain. The king and queen followed developments with concern.
Rail operator Adif shut down all services between Madrid and Andalucía.
