Spain's prime minister says trust in high-speed rail broken after fatal collision

Prime minister Pedro Sánchez said on Friday that public confidence in Spain’s high-speed rail network has been damaged after a collision near Urda, Castilla-La Mancha, that left at least 69 dead and more than 100 injured. He pledged a thorough investigation and solutions to prevent a repeat of the tragedy, noting that the victims include passengers from at least 23 foreign countries.

The accident occurred just before 9 a.m. when a Renfe train travelling from Madrid to Andalucía struck the rear of an Iryo train that had already stopped, causing several carriages to derail. The crash follows a similar incident nine months earlier on the same line that killed 46 people.

Transport minister Óscar Puente rejected calls for his resignation, saying his priority is to clarify the causes and offer solutions. He suggested the incident may be linked to a failure of the LZB signalling system, which forced control decisions to be made manually. A preliminary report indicated that a Renfe train was travelling at 160-200 km/h when it collided with the Iryo train, exceeding the 40 km/h speed limit required when the signalling system is offline.

Union representatives accused the ministry of blaming an individual operator while ignoring systemic workload pressures. Opposition leaders, including People’s Party head Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Frente Amplio leader Ada Colau, called for Puente’s dismissal, linking the crashes to broader political accountability. Puente said he was not considering the electoral implications of the crash.