Spain train crash death toll hits 78
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain — A Spanish train that hurtled off the rails and smashed into a security wall as it rounded a bend was going so fast that carriages tumbled off the tracks like dominoes, according to eyewitness accounts and video footage obtained today.
The official death toll from Wednesday night’s crash near this Christian festival city in northwest Spain rose to 78 in Spain’s deadliest wreck in four decades.
Hospital officials said 141 people were injured, and 36 remained in critical condition today, among them four children.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, toured the crash scene alongside rescue workers and went to a nearby hospital to visit some of the injured and their families.
Eyewitness accounts backed by security-camera footage of the moment of disaster suggested that the eight-carriage train carrying 218 passengers was going too fast as it tried to turn left underneath a road bridge.
The speed limit on that section of track is 50 mph, Spanish officials said.
The footage, which the Spanish railway authority Adif said probably came from one of its cameras, shows the train carriages start to buckle soon into the turn, with the first and second passenger carriages leaving the tracks first. The engine itself quickly follows, violently tipping on to its right side as it crashes into a concrete security wall and bulldozes its way along the ground.
In the background, all the rear carriages can be seen starting to decouple and come off the tracks. The picture goes blank as the engine appears to crash directly into the camera.
Santiago officials took control of the main sports stadium to use as a makeshift morgue.
The Interior Ministry ruled out terrorism as a cause.
