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A woman of Cuban nationality is among the missing following the tragic train accident that occurred this Sunday in the town of Adamuz, Córdoba, Spain, where two high-speed trains collided and at least 40 people have lost their lives.
The accident occurred at 7:45 PM when a train from the Iryo company, operating the Málaga–Madrid route, derailed at the entrance of Adamuz and invaded the opposite track, where an Alvia train was traveling from Madrid to Huelva.
According to authorities, there were 294 people traveling on the Iryo train, while the Alvia train had 184 passengers. In addition to the 40 confirmed fatalities so far, more than 150 injuries have been reported—41 of whom are hospitalized, including 13 in intensive care units—and an indeterminate number of missing persons, who have not been rescued and are being searched for among the wreckage caused by the collision.
One of the missing persons has been identified as Tamara Margarita Valdés, a Cuban resident in Huelva, reported the newspaper El País.
Her husband, Ramón Montón, was anxiously looking for her at the doors of the municipal booth in Adamuz when he was interviewed by the newspaper. Tamara was one of the 184 passengers traveling on the Alvia from the Spanish capital to Huelva.
"I spoke with her 20 minutes before the accident. She almost missed the train," Montón stated.
"I am very nervous, I still haven't been able to locate her, it has taken me three hours from Huelva, I stepped on the gas a little," admitted the distressed husband, who traveled urgently from his hometown, Huelva, to the scene of the incident to search for Tamara.
Like him, dozens of desperate people continue to search for their loved ones, while, as the hours pass, the pessimism increases about the possibility of finding survivors among the wreckage of the damaged train cars.
Hours after the tragedy, in a press conference held at the Adif facilities in the Atocha station in Madrid, Spain's Minister of Transport, Oscar Puente, described the railway accident as "extremely strange".
"It’s rare, very rare; it's very difficult to explain at this moment," he stated to the reporters.
He revealed that both the track and the Iryo train were recently manufactured. "The track was renovated this spring and the Iryo train is not even four years old. All the materials were practically new," Puente explained before traveling to Córdoba to supervise the emergency operations.
According to official information, the accident occurred on a straight section of the railway track where work to replace switches and crossings was completed last May, an investment valued at 700 million euros.
The first two units of the Alvia train, which were carrying 53 people, were the most affected as they fell from a four-meter embankment following the collision. Rescue teams from the Fire Department and Civil Protection have focused their efforts in that area since early Monday morning.
The mayor of Adamuz, Rafael Moreno, described the scene as "dreadful" and stated that he had seen dismembered bodies at the site of the impact.
The fire chief of Córdoba, Paco Carmona, explained that the rescue of the remaining passengers is proving to be extremely complicated due to the difficulties in accessing the "twisted" cars, which have become "masses of iron," with "seats and all sorts of obstacles that hinder reaching the victims."
Today, Monday at noon (local time), the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, declared three days of official mourning for the tragedy that has shocked the entire country.
This is the most serious high-speed train accident that has occurred in Spain. Nearly 24 hours after the catastrophe and while rescue efforts continue, the families of the missing passengers—like Tamara's—still hold on to the hope of finding their loved ones alive.
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