Bloodied, dazed and angry – how passengers’ rail journey turned to disaster in Spain

It was approaching 09:00 (08:00 GMT) and two high-speed trains were travelling south from the Spanish capital, Madrid, to Seville.

One, run by state-owned operator Renfe had 397 passengers on board. Ahead of it on the same line was a train of Iryo private operator with 147 passengers. A reported issue with the automatic signalling system – a computer failure – had forced all trains to halt on the affected stretch.

Then the impossible happened, Spain’s transport minister said, as the Renfe train was ordered to proceed in “error”.

It crashed into the back of the other train between municipalities Mora and Orgaz, about 140km (87 miles) south of Madrid.

Broken arms, broken noses, rail through the roof

Spanish journalist Roberto Gómez was dozing on the high-speed Renfe train, when it stopped and an announcement was made to passengers that there was congestion on the tracks.

The train eventually began to move again, he explained, and then the crash happened.

“The impact was terrible,” he told Onda Cero radio. “You can imagine, the carriage is completely destroyed. All the suitcases are all over the wrecked carriage.”

Gómez suffered only minor injuries but described another passenger falling on top of him and sustaining a deep gash on his head.

“We were able to help people who had suffered severe blows to their chest and ribs,” he said.

Rafael Barcelo was in one of the worst-affected carriages. A bruise on his forehead makes him one of the lucky survivors. He was having a coffee at the time of the crash and “felt a huge impact”.

“We were all thrown into the air,” he told Reuters news agency at the site of the crash.

“I am reasonably OK, my friend is quite worse.”

“I was travelling in coach seven, which is the one with more victims and the one most destroyed. I at least counted eight victims in that coach,” he said, visibly shocked.

In the last carriage of the Renfe train, Miguel Ángel Pérez saw a similar scene.

“It was a terrible crash. The carriage partially overturned,” he told Spanish TV program La Hora de La 1. “Luckily there were few people standing,” he said.