MADRID — A high-speed train ran into the back of a train that had stopped in central Spain on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people, according to The Associated Press.
Both trains were heading the same way, from Madrid to Seville. Esther Padilla, a spokeswoman for the Castilla-La Mancha region, told state broadcaster TVE that one train hit the tail of the other while it was stopped, knocking two of its cars off the track.
Padilla said the cause of the crash was not known.
There were 544 people aboard the two trains. Padilla put the number on the Renfe train at 397 and the number on the Iryo train at 147.
“The latest confirmed figure is 10 dead, but we know it is going to increase. Very likely we will be talking about a higher number,”
Spain’s rail operator, Adif, said the crash happened in Toledo province, and rail service was suspended between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia. In a message on X, Adif said traffic on the Madrid-Andalusia high-speed line had been suspended after a rear-end collision between two trains.
Manuel Galán, the mayor of the nearby town of Urda, told TVE that passengers had been injured. Civil protection officials had asked the town hall to prepare a sports pavilion to attend to passengers, he said.
Emiliano García-Page, the regional president of Castilla-La Mancha, wrote on X that he was on his way to the crash site.
Renfe is Spain’s state-owned rail company, and Iryo is a private operator. Trains from the two companies were also involved in a deadly crash in January, when 45 people died in southern Spain after a train jumped the track and hit an oncoming train.
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