One of the passengers of the AVE train that was involved in the train accident that occurred this morning at 8:54 a.m. in Urda, Toledo, has recounted how the crash was experienced from one of the last cars. As he explained, they remained stopped for a few minutes because “infrastructure mishaps“, according to the email that arrived just moments before the impact occurred with the Iryo train, which was stopped on the tracks.
“I’m Alberto, I was in car 3 of the AVE. Fortunately, it was one of the last. We have collided with the Iryo that was ahead, also with the same fate“, he began his story. Despite this, and as other survivors of the accident have reported, the blow could be felt in all the train cars. An impact that caused the derailment of the last two cars of the Iryo, causing 68 deaths and 58 hospitalized.
The first hypotheses point to an error in the signaling system
“We have been stopped for about 12 minutes before and they tell us from the cabin that it is a traffic problem. I don’t know if there was a cow race. “I don’t understand it, that traffic thing,” he said. The crash occurred at kilometer point 118, between the towns of Mora and Orgaz and Urda, Toledo, after a failure occurred in the LZB security system, according to the first hypotheses. A system whose main function is to continuously monitor both the speed of the trains and intervene on the brake when necessary.
“It is incomprehensible that a train with three stops only has 5 minutes of margin With respect to us, we only do one,” said Alberto. Well, both trains had the same destination, the Santa Justa station in Seville, and circulated on the same tracks. Due to this, the circulation of both trains depended on the signaling system to resume their circulation. As explained by Óscar Puentes, Minister of Transport, the first hypothesis points to a “human error by an Adif operator in the event of a breakdown” of said system.
“We received an email reporting mishaps in the infrastructure and right at that moment the impact occurred. It has been horrible. We have passed over the Iryo“Alberto narrated. A news that at first they were not aware of, because at the time he was only able to think about his survival. “I only remember the impact for a second, which is eternal, then the darkness and crouching down to protect myself.”
The number of fatalities amounts to 68 people
After the impact, all the survivors began trying to get out of the cars and help those who may have been trapped by the debris. “We had to help each other to get out. In my car there was a piece of track crossed through the roof. And there was a man,” Alberto concluded. The last Death toll rises to 68 people, with 58 injured and 15 of them very serious. Due to this, Pedro Sánchez has reported that three days of official mourning will be declared from October 29 to 31.”
Likewise, the president has assured from the command post near the accident that “if there has been negligence, it will be known and, if there have been safety failures, it will be responded to with total transparency.” News that comes after the tragic Adamuz derailment that occurred in January with 48 fatalities. Between the two accidents, the number of deaths exceeds 100. “Two high-speed accidents in less than a year are not acceptable for a country like Spain.“said Sánchez.