Speed cause of subway crash
VALENCIA, Spain — A train that derailed and killed 41 people in Spain's worst subway accident was traveling at twice the normal speed, a government official said Tuesday.
The train's excessive speed has led officials to believe the driver had either fainted or become otherwise indisposed before it derailed and overturned inside an underground tunnel in the Mediterranean port of Valencia on Monday, said Jose Ramon Garcia Anton, Valencia's regional transport minister.
The train was traveling at 50 mph, rather than the average 25 mph at the curved section where it derailed, Garcia Anton said.
He said neither the train nor the tracks had suffered any kind of mechanical failure before the derailment, denying initial reports that a wheel had broken.
"There was an excess of speed at some point," the minister said in the first government news conference about the accident.
He said the driver, who died, was fully qualified and been on the job since April after undergoing more than 250 hours of training.
Justice Ministry official Rosa Sanchez told The Associated Press that five of the dead were foreign nationals from Argentina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Paraguay and Venezuela. One of the dead has not yet been identified, Sanchez said. Forty-seven people were injured.
The city in eastern Spain, meanwhile, suddenly turned from preparing a festive visit of the pope to mourning its dead.
A funeral service at Valencia's cathedral was attended by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and other national and regional dignitaries. Families of the victims were applauded as they entered the cathedral.
At a noontime vigil, residents of observed five minutes of silence in memory of the victims.
Traffic stopped, construction workers paused and government officials stood grim-faced during the observance. A plaza outside the headquarters of the Valencia regional government swelled with hundreds of people.
"Spaniards' hearts are in Valencia," Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said after attending the ceremony. She said the accident had shocked the whole country and that support from other Spaniards should help Valencia "get through and overcome these bitter moments."
