A Signal Outage, a Fatal Green Light: Spain Mourns Its Second High-Speed Rail Disaster This Year

Spain is in three days of official mourning after one of Europe's worst rail disasters this century. On Wednesday morning, a state-owned Renfe high-speed train rear-ended a private Iryo train. The Iryo train had stopped near Urda, in Toledo province, on the line from Madrid to Andalusia. At least 68 people died. The two trains carried 544 passengers, and officials said 107 needed hospital treatment, 15 in serious condition.

The government's early account is troubling. Transport minister Óscar Puente said that around 8:30 a.m. a computer failure shut down LZB, the system that tracks trains and brakes them automatically. Six trains stopped along a 63-kilometre stretch. A control centre in Madrid then cleared the Renfe train to resume normal running, even though a stop signal remained in place. It travelled about 25 kilometres and hit the stationary train roughly 17 minutes later. Puente called the decision "inexplicable" and said there had been plenty of time to catch the mistake.

Puente also said at least one other train got a similar wrong instruction that morning. Its engineer pushed back and insisted on going slowly, watching the track ahead.

Spaniards are angry because this has happened before. In January, another Renfe–Iryo collision on the same line killed 46 people. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called two high-speed crashes in one year "unacceptable." The timing is hard for him, with general elections only weeks away. Opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo wants an independent review of the entire rail network. The Guardia Civil and Spain's rail accident investigators are still investigating what happened, and Spain's football federation has called off all 24 Copa del Rey games scheduled for Wednesday.