A high-speed train derailed and was hit by another in southern Spain killing 39 people and injuring more than 120, authorities said on Monday, January 19th, calling the country’s worst train crash in over a decade “extremely strange.”
It was the deadliest railway accident since 2013, when 80 people died after a train veered off a curved section of track outside the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.
The crash happened on Sunday evening when a train operated by rail company Iryo travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed near Adamuz, crossing onto the other track where it crashed into an oncoming train, which also derailed.
Transport Minister Óscar Puente told reporters the disaster took place on a straight part of the track, which was completely renovated.
The first train to derail was “practically new,” making the accident “extremely strange,” he added.
Rail experts “are very surprised by this accident because it is very strange and very difficult to explain at this stage,” the minister said.
