FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Iryo, a private rail company that operated the journey from Malaga, said around 300 passengers were on board the train that first derailed, while the other train, operated by state-owned firm Renfe, had around 100 passengers on board.
At least 24 people were killed and 73 others injured on Sunday evening in a high-speed rail accident involving two trains in southern Spain, authorities confirmed.
Of the injured, 15 are in serious condition, the President of the Andalusia region, Juanma Moreno, announced, adding that medical teams had treated another 170 people for minor injuries in a field hospital, according to public broadcaster RTVE.
The accident happened at around 7:40 p.m. local time (18:40 GMT) when a train traveling from Malaga to Madrid derailed near Adamuz, Cordoba, and crashed into an adjacent track.
Authorities warned that the death toll could rise in Spain's worst rail crash in more than a decade.
The carriages of a train bound for Madrid derailed and crossed into the opposite direction, colliding with an oncoming train in Adamuz, near the city of Cordoba.
There were 400 passengers and staff on both trains, the railway network said. At least 24 people were seriously injured in the collision, including four children, according to Andalusian emergency services.
Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente described the incident as "extremely strange" as officials launched an investigation.
All the railway experts consulted by the government "are extremely perplexed by the accident," Puente told reporters in Madrid.
Rail network operator Adif said the collision occurred around ten minutes after the train left Malaga at 6:40 p.m. local time (5:40 p.m. GMT) heading for Madrid.
The type of train involved in the accident was a Freccia 1000, which can reach a top speed of 400 km/h (250 mph), a spokesman for the Italian railway company Ferrovie dello Stato told Reuters news agency.
Cordoba's fire chief, Francisco Carmona, told Spanish public broadcaster RTVE: "We had to extract a dead person to be able to reach someone alive. It's a difficult and complicated job."
Salvador Jimenez, an RTVE journalist who was on one of the trains, said the impact felt like an "earthquake".
"I was in the first carriage. There was a moment when it felt like an earthquake and the train really went off the tracks," Jimenez said.
Footage from the scene shows several train carriages that had been overturned on their sides. Rescue workers can be seen climbing onto the train to pull people out of the twisted doors and windows of the train.
All rail services between Madrid and Andalusia were suspended after the accident and are expected to remain closed throughout Monday.
Iryo, a private rail company that operated the journey from Malaga, said about 300 passengers were on board the train that derailed first, while the other train, operated by state-owned firm Renfe, had about 100 passengers.
The official cause is not yet known. According to the transport minister, no investigation to determine what happened is expected for at least a month.
Spain's Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the country would go through a "night of deep pain."
The mayor of Adamuz, Rafael Moreno, was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the accident, describing it as "a nightmare."
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia said they were following news of the disaster with "great concern."
"We express our most sincere condolences to the relatives and loved ones of the deceased, as well as our love and wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured," the royal palace said in a statement.
The emergency agency in the Andalusia region urged all survivors of the accident to contact their families or write on social media if they are alive.
In 2013, Spain suffered its worst high-speed train accident in Galicia, in northwestern Spain, where 80 people died and 140 were injured.
Spain's high-speed rail network is the second largest in the world, after China, connecting more than 50 cities across the country. Adif data shows that Spanish rail is more than 4,000 km long (2,485 miles). /Pamphlet/
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