ADAMUZ, Spain (AP) — Spain woke to flags at half staff on Tuesday as the nation began three days of mourning for the victims of the deadly train accident in the country’s south, while emergency crews continue searching for possible bodies.
The official death toll of Sunday’s accident rose to 40 by late Monday. But officials warned that that count may not be definitive, with emergency workers still probing for bodies among what Andalusian regional president Juanma Moreno called “a twisted mass of metal.”
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Spanish national television RTVE late Monday that searchers believe they have found three more bodies still trapped in the wreckage. Those bodies are not included in the official count, the minister said.
The crash took place Sunday at 7:45 p.m. when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails. It slammed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to rail operator Adif.
The head of the second train, which was carrying nearly 200 passengers, took the brunt of the impact. That collision knocked its first two carriages off the track and sent them plummeting down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of meters (feet) from the crash site, Moreno said.
Officials are continuing to investigate the causes of the incident that Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has called “truly strange” since it occurred on a straight line and neither train was speeding.
But Puente said late Monday that officials had found a broken section of track.
“Now we have to determine if that is a cause or a consequence (of the derailment),” Puente told Spanish radio Cadena Ser.
The train that jumped the track belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train, which took the brunt of the impact, belonged to Spain’s public train company, Renfe. Iryo said in a statement Monday that its train was manufactured in 2022 and passed its latest safety check on Jan. 15.
Álvaro Fernández, the president of Renfe, said that both trains were traveling well under the speed limit of 250 kph (155 mph) and “human error could be ruled out.”
The accident shook a nation that leads Europe in high-speed train mileage and takes pride in a network that is considered at the cutting edge of rail transport.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the accident site near the town of Adamuz on Monday, where he declared three days of mourning with flags lowered on all public buildings and navy vessels.
Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia are scheduled to visit on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Spain's Civil Guard is collecting DNA samples from family members who fear they have loved ones among the unidentified dead.
Train services Tuesday between Madrid and cities in Andalusia, Spain's most populous region, remained canceled, causing large disruptions. Spanish airline Iberia added flights to Seville and Malaga to help stranded travelers. Some bus companies also reinforced their services in the south.
