At least 68 people were killed and dozens injured on Wednesday morning (28) in Spain, when a high-speed train operated by the state-owned Renfe, traveling from Madrid to Seville, crashed into a train of the private operator Iryo that was stopped on the tracks, about 140 kilometers south of the Spanish capital, near the town of Urda, in Toledo province. The Spanish government confirmed the death toll but warned it could rise, according to BBC Brasil.
Transport Minister Óscar Puente said a failure in the computer system halted six trains, including the two that later collided. In the event of a breakdown, the control center takes command, and it was the center itself that authorized trains to resume circulation with no speed restriction, a decision Puente said was made "under inexplicable circumstances". A BBC reconstruction of the accident found that about 17 minutes elapsed between the breakdown and the crash. There were 397 passengers on the Renfe train and 147 on the Iryo service, among them a baby. Four carriages tumbled down an embankment on impact. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the emergency center set up near the site and said: "Today, all of Spain is in mourning".
Political fallout and street pressure
The crash, the deadliest on European railways since the 2013 Santiago de Compostela derailment that killed 80 people, landed in the middle of the campaign for the November 29 general election and reshuffled Spanish politics within hours. The conservative Popular Party (PP) of frontrunner Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Sánchez's Socialist Party (PSOE) suspended campaign events. The far-right Vox party, a potential coalition partner for the conservatives, kept its agenda and blamed the government for what it called the deterioration of infrastructure and institutions. In the evening, around 500 protesters gathered outside the Transport Ministry in Madrid demanding the government's resignation; there were clashes with police, who used tear gas to disperse the crowd, with no injuries or arrests reported, according to CNN Brasil.
For Brazil there is a direct human stake: Spain hosts one of the largest Brazilian communities in Europe and ranks among the most popular European destinations for Brazilian tourists. So far, the outlets consulted have not reported any Brazilian victims. There is also a diplomatic interest at play: President Lula's government keeps a close relationship with Sánchez within the progressive Ibero-American axis, and electoral damage to the socialist leader amid investigations into rail safety could change Brasília's Spanish interlocutor just as the European Union moves to implement its trade agreement with Mercosur.
The disaster also revives the debate over the liberalization of Spain's high-speed network, one of the largest in the world, opened to private competition in recent years, with Iryo and Renfe sharing the most profitable routes such as the Madrid-Andalusia corridor. It is the second fatal crash involving the two companies on the same line in less than a year: on January 9, a collision in Córdoba province left at least 45 dead. Renfe suspended services between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia while Guardia Civil teams, firefighters and the Castilla-La Mancha health service continue rescue work and the government investigates whether safety protocols failed.