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The death toll following the derailment of two trains in Ademuz (Córdoba), Spain, has risen to 40.
According to Efe's report this Monday, the operation focuses on accessing the cars that fell from the embankment and locating other possible victims.
Álvaro Fernández Heredia, president of the operator Renfe, ruled out that the accident was due to speeding or human error, and clarified that the causes will take days to be determined.
For its part, as specified, the Community Medical Emergency Service, SUMMA 112, has received over 100 unharmed passengers from the trains.
The event
For his part, the Spanish Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, described the train accident as “tremendously strange.”
Puente appeared early Monday morning from the Adif facilities at the Atocha station in Madrid, where he provided the first details about the tragedy and emphasized the unusual nature of the event.
"It is strange, very strange, it is very difficult to explain at this moment," he declared to the media, according to the newspaper El País.
The head of Transport stated that the railway experts he spoke with last night were "tremendously surprised" by the circumstances of the incident.
He specified that both the track and the train were newly manufactured.
"The track was renovated this spring, and the Iryo train is not even four years old. All the materials were practically new," explained Puente, who will travel to Córdoba to oversee the emergency work.
The minister also announced the creation of an independent commission tasked with investigating what happened.
"At this moment, we cannot speculate on whether it was the rolling stock or the track. We don't know," he insisted.
According to official information, the accident occurred on a straight section of the railway line where the replacement of switches and crossovers 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 down an embankment after the derailment. Firefighters and Civil Protection teams focused their rescue efforts in that area throughout the early morning.
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