Spain starts three days of mourning for 69 dead in Toledo rail crash as drivers strike and victims are named

Since Wednesday's crash between a Renfe AVE and a stationary Iryo train near Urda in Toledo province, the story has moved from rescue to identification, mourning and political fallout.

Spain's Railway Accident Investigation Commission has revised the death toll to 69. The transport ministry had previously cited 74 fatalities. Emergency crews worked through the night with cranes, drones and dog units, and García-Page, the president of Castilla-La Mancha, said Thursday that rescuers do not expect to find more bodies in one overturned carriage, though body parts were found that still need to be identified.

Mourning and the injured

Spain began three days of national mourning on Thursday, Oct. 29. King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia cancelled their official engagements and visited a Toledo hospital to meet survivors and relatives. The hospital is treating 15 patients in intensive care and eight on general wards. García-Page said 50 people taken to hospitals in the region were still receiving treatment.

The Civil Guard has set up clinics where relatives give DNA samples. The bodies are at the main forensics institute in Toledo. NBC News reported that Spanish officials say 67 passengers remained missing as of Thursday, so the final count of the dead may not be settled.

Spain's foreign ministry said 42 foreign citizens from seven countries were involved. One was killed and at least seven were injured.

Who has been named

Among the dead is Fátima Báñez, 59, who served as employment minister under Mariano Rajoy from 2011 to 2018 and chaired the CEOE business confederation. The CEOE confirmed her death.

Also killed were Julieta Gallego, a 24-year-old long jumper with Madrid club AD Sprint, and Civil Guard officer José Manuel Chacón, 31. The Civil Guard confirmed his death. Tax lawyer Antonio Montero Domínguez, a former inspector with Spain's tax authority, was also among the dead, the authority said.

What the control-centre recordings suggest

Puente has said a computer malfunction knocked out the security system around 8:30 a.m. and stopped several trains. Traffic then passed to the Madrid control centre. About 8:36, the centre cleared the Renfe train to resume without speed limits even though the Iryo train was stopped ahead, Puente said. He called the decision an erroneous breach of protocol and described the circumstances as "inexplicable."

Audio obtained by Spanish media indicates the Renfe driver was told to proceed "at normal speed." El Diario, citing the recordings, reported that the Iryo driver called the control centre about five minutes after the Renfe train was cleared to say her train was still stopped because of the signalling problem. The collision came at about 8:53.

El Diario also cited industry sources who said that with the LZB system down, trains should proceed at sight speed, no more than 40 km/h. A high-speed train at around 200 km/h can need more than a kilometre to stop.

Puente has said rear-end collisions like this are "highly unlikely." The Railway Accident Investigation Commission's findings are still to come.

Strike and street protest

Train drivers went on strike Thursday to press for more investment in railway safety. On Wednesday night a march on the transport ministry in Madrid ended in clashes with police. The protest was called at short notice by a workers' union, student groups and, according to El Confidencial, several hundred demonstrators that included people professing Falangist beliefs.

The marchers chanted against Puente, with slogans such as "Óscar Puente, minister of death." They accused the government of letting the state railways deteriorate. Puente has rejected calls to resign. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, speaking at the emergency command centre in Toledo, said every level of the state is working to establish the cause and "strengthen safety measures so that something like this never happens again."

El Confidencial reported that police used tear gas and pepper spray. Breitbart described a baton charge. Some protesters told El Confidencial they felt they were being treated more roughly than left-wing demonstrators in the same city. The Madrid police have not been quoted in these accounts.

The January precedent

This is Spain's second major rail disaster this year. In January, 46 people died near Adamuz in Andalucía when two trains, one from Renfe and one from Iryo, collided on the same line. The Toledo crash is the deadliest rail accident in the country since 2013.

The unanswered questions are specific: why a train was cleared to run at normal speed toward a stopped one, and why the second warning from the Iryo driver did not stop it. The commission's investigation will have to answer both, and the DNA identifications in Toledo will determine whether 69 is the final toll.