At least 68 people died when two trains collided near Urda in Toledo on Wednesday morning. The provisional toll includes 44 passengers from the Iryo train and 24 from the AVE; 53 people were in hospital early Thursday, including 15 in serious condition. Rescue teams kept searching the wreckage, and the casualty figures remained provisional.
Julio Iglesias issued a public statement on October 29, linking the disaster to the need for closer oversight of railway infrastructure. He opened with «Injusticia» and wrote: «Todos podríamos habernos subido a este tren».
The singer’s words make a forceful case for maintenance. Investigators are examining the technical failure and the control-room decisions that followed. Early reports focused on why the Renfe train was authorised to continue while the Iryo remained stopped; the technical and judicial inquiries are still under way.
Iglesias wrote that faster communications and modern technology must go hand in hand with care and inspection. «Todo lo que avanza en la vida tiene que ir siempre acompañado de una revisión exhaustiva de lo que se ha construido», he said. He also wrote: «Mi alma podría haber viajado en este tren con todos nosotros».
The collision happened at 8:53 a.m. on October 28, when a Renfe AVE travelling from Madrid to Seville struck the rear of an Iryo train stopped on the same high-speed line. Several carriages derailed. Renfe is state-owned, while Iryo is a private operator; both trains were carrying passengers on the Madrid-to-Seville corridor.
Transport Minister Óscar Puente said the LZB train-control system failed at about 8:30 a.m., disrupting traffic across roughly 63 kilometres of line and automatically stopping several trains. Adif, Spain’s railway infrastructure manager, then took manual control of operations, and its control centre authorised the AVE to resume while the Iryo remained stationary. The Renfe train travelled about 25 kilometres after being cleared to restart before the collision, CNBC reported. Puente called the decision «inexplicable»; investigators are examining the signalling failure and how staff handled communications and train movements to establish what happened and determine any responsibility.
Emergency teams were still working among the wreckage early Thursday to recover bodies and check for further victims. Castilla-La Mancha president Emiliano García-Page warned that the death toll could rise when the damaged carriages are removed. Adif suspended high-speed services between Madrid and Andalusia. Renfe has said an alternative transport plan is due to begin on Friday, October 30.
