High-Speed Train Derails In North-West Spain - 35 Killed, Hundreds Injured

Submitted by Tyler Durden: When we recently described the case of the "monoderailed" Spanish "train to nowhere" we hardly had in mind just how sad and tragic this proposition would become in reality just two short weeks later. A high-speed train (traveling at 250kph) has derailed in Northwestern Spain - killing at least 35 people and injured hundreds more.
As CNN reports, the train crashed on a curve near the city of Santiago de Compostela - traveling from Madrid to the town of Ferrol. With China unveiling its plans to save the world's economy via a rail-road infrastructure fund, and Spain already neck-deep in funding rail-roads to nowhere, this evening's terrible disaster in Spain will surely provide some food for thought.

Via The Guardian,

Eyewitnesses said that the derailed train, which was reportedly carrying 240 passengers when the accident happened, had caught fire after the crash.

"It was going so quickly … It seems that on a curve the train started to twist, and the wagons piled up one on top of the other," passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station.

"A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realised the train was burning … I was in the second wagon and there was fire … I saw corpses," he added.

Another witness told the station they had heard an explosion before seeing the derailed train.

Clip of the crashed train:
 

Various images of the crash site:




Source



www.sofilianews.blogspot.com
At least 12 people were killed and several others injured when they were run over by a train in a town south of Barcelona, Spain, a spokesman for Catalonia Emergency Center said Thursday.
At least 14 more were hurt, and three remained in critical condition, the spokesman said.
The accident occurred Wednesday between 11:30 p.m. and midnight local time as a group tried to cross the tracks after getting off a local train that had stopped at the town of Castelldefels, authorities said.
Many were headed to the Fiesta de San Juan, which celebrates the year's shortest night, on the beach at Castelldefels.
Castelldefels mayor, Joan Sau, said about 30 people were crossing the tracks when a Barcelona-bound express train hit them.
In an interview with Spanish radio network SER, Sau said that remodelling at the train station last October resulted in the closure of an elevated crosswalk over the tracks. However, it was replaced by an underground passageway beneath the tracks, which he said was open and in use at the time of the accident.
Spanish media reports, citing witnesses, said the underground passageway was crowded as people headed to the festivities on the nearby beach. The mayor said he could not confirm those reports.
"There are bodies that are absolutely destroyed," a witness told El Pais newspaper. "The train passed over them at full speed and the pieces of bodies are all over."
Spanish Development Minister Jose Blanco said he ordered an investigation into the accident. But initial signs pointed to "imprudence" by those who tried to cross the tracks, Blanco said.