A trainee driver was killed and 41 people were injured when a commuter train derailed near Barcelona on Tuesday evening, just three days after a high-speed collision in southern Spain left at least 43 dead. The crash occurred around 9pm when a retaining wall collapsed onto the track near Gelida in Catalonia, derailing the local train. Five of the injured are in a critical condition.
The wall is believed to have collapsed due to unusually heavy rainfall in the region, which has also caused other incidents. As a precaution, the Catalan rail network was shut down pending inspections, stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers and causing chaos on the roads.
Earlier on Tuesday, a train on the Maresme coast north of Barcelona struck a rock on the track, injuring several people, though none seriously. The train continued after a delay.
Spain's largest train drivers' union, Semaf, has called for an indefinite strike, demanding assurances for safety and criminal liability for those responsible for maintaining the railway infrastructure. The union said it could not accept 'the constant deterioration of the rail network' and called for urgent new measures.
Meanwhile, the black box recorder from Sunday's fatal collision near Córdoba revealed that the driver of the high-speed Iryo train was seemingly unaware that another train had collided with his. Transcripts show he contacted the control centre a minute after the crash, reporting a 'snag' before later realising the train had derailed.
Opposition parties have seized on the accidents to criticise the government, with Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo demanding 'immediate clarification' of the state of the railways. However, Transport Minister Óscar Puente stressed that the two incidents were 'completely unrelated', and according to EU statistics, Spain's rail network remains one of Europe's safest, with only one passenger death in 2024.
