64 people have died in Spain’s high-speed rail tragedy. The signal failure control center nevertheless ordered the car to reverse, leading to the collision.

Spain happened on the 28thhigh speed rail At least 64 people died and hundreds were injured in the train collision. It was Spain’s second major rail disaster this year and the country’s deadliest rail accident in a decade. The accident occurred at 8:54 am local time. The trains involved were AVE high-speed trains operated by the Spanish national railway company Renfe and high-speed trains operated by the private operator Irio. At the time, the Erio train was heading south from Madrid towards Sevilla. Due to the failure of the signaling system and subsequent decisions to abandon the train, a Renfe train traveling in the same direction behind it was suspected to have failed to brake in time and hit it from behind, causing some carriages to derail.

Spanish media reported that passengers on the crashed train said the impact was so strong that people in the dining car were thrown, some with broken arms and legs, and passengers piled on top of each other. Some passengers came out of the car windows and lay down on a nearby ground. Hearing the sound of the accident, local employees reached the spot and helped the injured by giving them first aid kits. He was also the first person to see the bodies of the victims.

Passenger Miguel, who was sitting in the rear compartment of the train with several of his companions, said: “We heard a huge noise, followed by a very violent crash, which lasted ten seconds. It felt as if the train was about to derail. We saw a seriously damaged train. I think it was another train.”

Spain’s Transport Minister Puente said that preliminary investigations showed that the accident involved a failure of the signaling system and subsequent train release decisions. They have reviewed accident reconstruction data and audio recordings of communications between the train involved and the dispatch centre.

Puente reported that at about 8:30 a.m. that day, a suspected communication problem caused the continuous train control system to fail, resulting in the loss of system coverage over a section of more than 60 kilometers, and six trains on this section automatically stopped. However, the control center of the Railway Infrastructure Management Company issued a manual instruction at around 8:36 pm to lift the warning and allow trains to resume operations. Subsequently, the AVE train from behind traveled approximately 25 kilometers and hit the Iryo train which was still stopped.

Puente questioned whether the order to resume travel should have been issued at that time. He said that even if the signaling system fails, strict procedures should be followed when restarting a train, including adopting the “visual driving” method and moving slowly at speeds up to 40 kilometers per hour instead of running at normal speed.

Following the accident, Spain has suspended train services between Madrid and the southern region of Andalusia. Prime Minister Sanchez expressed condolences and support to the victims, the injured and their families.

Early elections are to be held in Spain at the end of November and this major train accident can become an election issue. The current election campaign environment is already quite tense, with the opposition camp increasingly questioning the governance abilities of the leftist government led by Prime Minister Sanchez. Following the accident, all political parties have suspended scheduled campaign activities.