High-speed train collision in Spain, 68 dead: the train was cleared to pass a red signal

At least 68 people have been killed in a collision between two high-speed trains in central Spain, at kilometre 118 of the Madrid - Seville high-speed line, near the town of Urda in the province of Toledo. 107 people are in hospital, and traffic between Madrid and Andalusia has been completely halted. Rescuers and the army are still pulling victims from the crushed carriages, and the authorities don't rule out finding more bodies underneath.

This isn't a story about a storm or an old railway. This is one of the most modern high-speed networks in Europe - and, according to the government's own first explanations, the train was given permission to pass a red signal.

What happened on the line

Transport Minister Óscar Puente explained that a computer system fault caused a problem with the safety system on a 63-kilometre section, so every train in that area stopped automatically. State railway infrastructure company Adif then took over control manually. It was decided that Renfe's AVE high-speed train should continue south towards Seville despite the red light on the signal. That train then slammed into the back of a stationary train operated by Iryo. Two carriages were crushed and thrown down the railway embankment.

Puente called the traffic controller's order "inexplicable". All staff on shift at Adif's control centre in Madrid tested negative for alcohol and drugs. The independent accident investigation body, set up only in July, says it is too early for any hypothesis.

The warnings nobody heard

Beyond the death toll, the most questions are raised by what came before the crash. The leading train drivers' union Semaf had already announced a 24-hour strike for the very day after the accident. The reason: failure to apply necessary safety measures on high-speed lines and increasingly frequent signalling failures. The civil servants' union CSIF, meanwhile, says it warned back in September about excessive working hours at Adif.

Now CSIF is demanding the minister's resignation, accusing him of turning a hard-working employee into a scapegoat instead of taking responsibility himself. A scenario the Balkans know by heart: when the system fails, the first culprit is always sought at the bottom of the hierarchy.

"If you had described this to me a week ago as a hypothetical scenario, I would have told you the chance of it happening today was zero," said Francisco Badea Romero, a professor of engineering in Madrid. He called the tragedy something that "should never have happened" and criticised the lack of transparency in Spain's rail system, in which passengers are forced to "blindly trust that everything is fine".

The street demands accountability

On Wednesday evening around 500 protesters gathered outside the Transport Ministry in Madrid, demanding resignations in the government. Some threw bottles and flares at police, who used tear gas. Banners read "Get out!" next to a photo of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and "Corruption kills". The far-right Vox party filed a criminal complaint for negligent homicide against those responsible at Adif.

Spain now has to answer the question every state avoids: is this one person's mistake on one shift - or a system that sent out warnings for months that nobody wanted to hear? If the answer stops at a single controller, the families of the 68 dead will have every right to ask why nobody higher up is answering for it.