“We must remove the bodies to reach those who are still alive,” fire chief Paco Carmona said as crews worked through the night at a crash site near Adamuz, in Andalusia. At least 39 people died when two high-speed trains left the rails on Sunday evening, and more than 150 passengers were injured.
Shortly after 19:30 local time, a Málaga-to-Madrid train derailed and sent several carriages onto the adjacent track. Moments later a second train, running from Madrid to Huelva, hit the derailed coaches and left the rails too. Transport minister Óscar Puente said three carriages from the first train were thrown onto the opposite line. The first train held more than 300 passengers. About 100 were on the second.
Trapped in crushed carriages
Responders described a chaotic, dangerous scene, with passengers pinned inside crushed carriages. A journalist travelling on one of the trains told RTVE that passengers had to smash windows with hammers to get out. A makeshift medical facility was set up inside a sports centre in Adamuz to treat the injured.
The Civil Guard later said all high-speed rail service between Madrid and Andalusia would stay suspended for the whole of 19 January.
A possible cause
Puente called the accident “extremely strange”. The derailment happened on a straight section of track that had been renovated in May 2025 and was considered to be in “perfect condition”, he said. The first derailed train was four years old.
No official cause has been given, and the rail infrastructure operator ADIF and national investigators are examining the site, including the rails and signalling systems. But The Independent, citing Reuters, reported that technicians had traced the likely cause to a damaged rail joint, according to a source familiar with the early findings. The source said the fishplate, the metal connector linking two sections of track, showed heavy wear, which pointed to a defect that had existed for a long time. A gap between the rail segments had gradually widened as trains passed over it and eventually destabilised the line, the source told Reuters.
Deadliest since 2013
The crash is Spain’s deadliest rail accident since the 2013 Santiago de Compostela derailment, which killed 79 people. Spain has the second-largest high-speed network in the world, and the service is widely used.
