Tras varios días de incertidumbre, las autoridades españolas confirmaron la muerte de Tamara Margarita Valdés, una cubana de 50 años, en la tragedia ferroviaria ocurrida en el municipio de Adamuz, provincia de Córdoba.
The news reached the family this Wednesday, although DNA identification was still pending, according to a person from their close circle informed elTOQUE.
With her case, the number of Cuban citizens involved in the accident rose to four, with her as the sole deceased.
El accidente ocurrió el domingo 18 de enero a las 7:45 pm, cuando un tren de la compañía Iryo (de alta velocidad), que cubría la ruta Málaga–Madrid, se descarriló a la entrada de Adamuz e invadió la vía contraria, por donde circulaba un tren Alvia que iba de Madrid a Huelva.
The Criminalistics Service of the Civil Guard reported that it has fully identified 41 individuals, although the total number of fatalities is 43.
The name of Tamara did not initially appear among the official lists of deceased. During the first few hours after the incident, she was listed in informal records of missing persons while her husband, Ramón Montón, desperately searched for her in a designated area near the scene of the accident.
"I spoke with her 20 minutes before the accident. She almost missed the train. I'm very anxious, I still haven't been able to locate her," he then stated to the newspaper El País.
Tamara, a resident of Huelva, was one of the 184 passengers traveling on the Alvia, where the highest number of fatalities occurred.
According to elTOQUE, he had just spent a weekend in Madrid with friends he hadn't seen in 25 years.
One of them, Rosy del Todo Fournier, shared a video on Instagram featuring photos from the reunion.
"Our last weekend together, a weekend filled with life, laughter, hugs, and genuine love. Unbeknownst to us, it would become an eternal treasure. Laughter that still resonates, glances that embrace, and a love that never fades. This final encounter lives on forever, just like you in my heart. We didn’t realize we were creating an everlasting memory that will resonate within us forever, that last hug filled with true affection," he wrote.
They met in Cuba in the early 90s, and in 1995, they traveled together to Spain as part of a tour organized by the Ministry of Culture with the music group Oro Negro. After the tour, they decided to stay.
Tamara first settled in the Canary Islands and then in Huelva, where she became the director of a real estate agency. She had an 18-year-old daughter.
On Sunday, I was returning to Huelva for professional reasons: I had a meeting early Monday morning.
"The comfort I have is that this weekend was so intense, exciting, filled with so much love from my siblings... What happened happened, but her last moments were happy. She left with so much happiness in her soul. That's what I hold onto," said Rosy.
While the identification efforts and data cross-referencing among lists of passengers, the injured, the deceased, and the missing continue, Tamara's case has remained open administratively for some time. For her family and friends, however, the wait has turned into mourning.
Además, de las 43 víctimas mortales se reportaron más de 150 heridos, 41 de ellos hospitalizados, de los cuales 13 están en unidades de cuidados intensivos.
In the Iryo, the high-speed train that derailed, there were 294 people, and in the Alvia, 184 passengers. The first two units of the Alvia, which had 53 people on board, were the most affected and fell down a four-meter slope.
El escenario fue descrito por el alcalde de Adamuz, Rafael Moreno, como "dantesco".
El jefe de bomberos de Córdoba, Paco Carmona, explicó que los coches quedaron "retorcidos" y convertidos en "amasijos de hierro", lo que dificultó enormemente las labores de rescate.
The president of the Spanish Government declared three days of official mourning for the accident, the most severe involving high-speed trains in Spain.
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