Death toll from train collision in Spain rises to 69: mourning, the King's visit, the Madrid — Seville line closed

What happened and how the casualty figures changed

On Wednesday morning, in central Spain, a high-speed train of the state-owned company Renfe crashed into the rear of a stationary train belonging to the company Iryo; the impact derailed at least three carriages from the embankment. Overnight, rescuers working with sniffer dogs found one more body beneath the damaged carriages lifted by cranes: according to the president of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, the death toll has reached 69, while 50 people remain in hospital. This is reported by Euronews in its Russian-language and English-language versions of the story.

Mourning and the authorities' response

The government declared three days of national mourning starting Thursday. King Felipe VI travelled to the hospital in Toledo where the survivors are being treated: hospital staff and people waiting outside greeted the monarch before he entered. The leader of the opposition People's Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, visited the site of the disaster. According to Euronews, the second fatal accident on a high-speed line within a year has raised new questions about the safety of rail transport.

Link to the January accident and consequences for passengers

In January, on this same line, 46 people died in a collision between Renfe and Iryo trains — meaning that two major disasters occurred on the same route within a year. The accident happened just four weeks before the general election and disrupted rail services: the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville is closed, and thousands of passengers are looking for alternative transport. The search through the wreckage scattered across the gravel embankment was still ongoing at the time of publication.