By Raf Sanchez and Michael Fiorentino
URDA, Spain — Spain began three days of mourning Thursday after at least 69 people were killed and dozens more injured in the country’s deadliest train crash in decades. But anger is mounting about the alleged incompetence that allowed the accident to happen and protesters clashed with police overnight outside the country’s transport ministry.
Once considered one of the country’s crowning achievements, Spain’s high-speed rail network had not endured a deadly crash since it came into service over 30 years ago.
After the second train accident in less than a year, the tragedy has deepened the feeling among many that there is something broken in Spanish society. The crash follows weeks of protests.
Rising costs and a housing shortage that is pricing many Spaniards out of the housing market, have already triggered massive and sometimes deadly protests across the country, and piled the pressure on the Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
On Wednesday, four weeks before the country goes to the polls in a national election, Sanchez visited the site in the central province of Toledo where a quiet stretch of rail lined by olive groves had been turned into a scene of devastation.
Pictures showed several carriages lying on their sides next to the tracks and others twisted at angles, their wheels sheared off. Debris was strewn around the scene of the accident in the countryside in the province of Toledo after one train crashed into another that was stationary on the line.
Hundreds of emergency workers, firefighters, police, firefighters and soldiers attended the scene to rescue survivors and recover bodies, before cranes were brought in to move parts of the damaged trains late Wednesday.
Several Americans were hurt, according to the State Department, which did not provide further details.
Jacksonville firefighter Josue Garcia-Otero was on board with seven of his family members.
“We got to safety first, then began treating other patients that were critically injured,” Garcia-Otero said in a news release issued by the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department. “My wife is a nurse, and she was helping too.”
Pledging an investigation and improvements to prevent a similar tragedy in future, Sánchez said it was clear that we need to reinforce the safety of our train service to rebuild the trust in our high-speed rail.”
It was “not acceptable for a country like Spain to endure two high-speed train accidents in the same year,” he said, referring to an incident in January when 46 people died after one train jumped the track and slammed into the side of another going the opposite way in the south of the country.
Both crashes involved trains operated by the state-owned RENFE company and the privately owned IRYO.
His transport minister, Óscar Puente, said that the crash was caused by what he called the “inexplicable” order from a central command center for Spain’s trains after a security system had failed.
Puente, who is facing calls to resign, said the train engineers were not to blame, but instead a security system had stopped working because of a computer malfunction, causing all trains on the line to stop at about 8:30 a.m. local time (5:30 a.m. ET).
Shortly afterwards he said central command had told the RENFE train to start running again without any speed restrictions, adding that never should have happened and it ended up colliding with the stationary IRYO train at 8:53 a.m.
Riot police used tear gas outside his transport ministry in Madrid late Wednesday after far-right protesters gathered outside and pushed against a cordon set up by officers. Some threw flares and other objects as some chanted slogans against Puente and Sánchez.
Quite what effect the accident will have on Sánchez’s political ambitions remains unclear. The prime minister called a snap election next month after his Socialist party suffered several defeats on legislation aimed at addressing the country’s housing crisis.
His minority government had put forward two decree laws aimed at protecting tenants in the rental market after nationwide protests following the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her Madrid apartment. Maricarmen Abascal, who was a wheelchair user, was eventually allowed to return but died in hospital before she could do so.
Sánchez who took power in 2018 has weathered several crises during his premiership including the Covid-19 pandemic and the global inflation rise.
But he has faced attacks from right-wing parties over his liberal migration policies and accusations of corruption against his party and his wife, which both deny, and polls show he is facing and uphill battle to win votes ahead of the election next month.