The derailment of two trains in Adamuz, Córdoba, has claimed 39 lives so far, with 73 people hospitalized. Of these, 24 are in serious condition, four of whom are minors. The incident, described by the Minister of Transport as “extremely strange,” occurred yesterday afternoon, shortly after 7:30 p.m., when an Iryo long-distance train derailed on its journey between Málaga and Madrid. Two of its carriages overturned and came to rest in the opposite lane.
Subsequently, an Alvia high-speed train that had departed from Madrid bound for Huelva braked suddenly as it traveled along the same track where two of the Iryo carriages had fallen. As Transport Minister Óscar Puente would later indicate, “the worst damage was suffered by the first two cars of the Alvia train, carrying 53 people.”
Carriages one and two fell down a four-meter embankment, and emergency services are currently working to extract the victims trapped inside. Adif has set up the phone number 900 10 10 20 to assist the families of passengers on the two derailed trains. Iryo, for its part, has the number 900 001 402. The first calls to the emergency services alerted them to an incident at 7:50 p.m., the cause of which is still unknown.
The Iryo 6189 long-distance train derailed at the entrance switches to track 1 in Adamuz, encroaching on the adjacent track. The Alvia 2384 long-distance train, which had departed from Puerta de Atocha station bound for Huelva, was also traveling on the same track when it derailed. The first train, owned by Italy, was carrying 317 passengers, while the Alvia had about 100 passengers on board. According to official sources, at the time of the collision, the Alvia was traveling at 200 kilometers per hour on a straight stretch of track.
From the emergency center at Atocha station, the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, appeared at 12:45 a.m. to provide an update on the train accident in Adamuz. In his statement, Puente indicated that the causes of the Iryo train’s derailment, which resulted in the train crossing into oncoming traffic, were unknown, although he described the incident as “extremely strange” given that it occurred on a straight section of track.
