The death toll rises to 21 in the collision of two trains in southern Spain

The death toll in the collision in southern Spain on Sunday between two trains carrying hundreds of passengers in the Spanish province of Córdoba (south) rose to 21, the Civil Guard told AFP. The Civil Guard did not give a figure for injured in the spectacular accident, but the emergency services of the region of Andalusia, where the events occurred, had estimated at least 25 serious injuries.

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The Spanish Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, explained that the last carriages of the Iryo train that derailed in Adamuz invaded the opposite track on which a Renfe high-speed train was circulating at that moment and, after a “terrible” impact. Two carriages of this last train flew off, causing a number of victims that “cannot be confirmed” yet. Puente is following all the information about the train accident at the H24 Network Management Center of the state-owned railway company Adif, in Madrid, and from there he explained on his X account that the latest information coming from Córdoba is “very serious”. The impact “has been terrible”, and caused “the first two units of the Renfe train to be thrown off as a result of it”. “The number of victims cannot be confirmed at this time. The main thing now is to help the victims”, the minister stressed. The journalist from Radio Nacional de España (RNE) Salvador Jiménez, who was traveling in the first carriage of the Iryo train at the time of the accident, which an hour after leaving Málaga felt like “an earthquake” in all the carriages and that “immediately” over the public address system the crew asked if there was medical personnel to help the injured in the last two carriages, one of them overturned on its side on the tracks and with broken windows. The travelers were leaving towards the Adamuz station, while the crew was grabbing hammers to break the windows and help people get out of the derailed wagons.