ADAMOUZ, Spain, Jan 19 (Reuters) – A Spanish high-speed train derailed on Sunday, killing at least 39 people, and experts investigating the cause discovered a broken joint in the track, a source with knowledge of the preliminary investigation into the disaster said.
The derailed carriage struck an oncoming train, pushing it off the tracks and down an embankment in one of the worst train disasters in modern Europe.
The accident occurred near Adamus in the southern province of Córdoba, about 360 kilometers (220 miles) south of the capital Madrid.
Technicians on site analyzing the rails found some wear on the joints between sections of the rails, known as fishplates, which they said indicated the fault had been present for some time, sources said.
They found that defective joints created gaps between rail sections that widened as the train continued to travel on the track.
The source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said technicians believed a defective joint was key to determining the exact cause of the accident.
Spain’s Commission for the Investigation of Rail Accidents (CIAF), which is responsible for a comprehensive investigation into the cause of the disaster, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Spanish rail operator Adif and Spain’s Transport Ministry, which oversees CIAF, also did not respond to requests for comment.
Álvaro Fernandez Heredia, president of Renfe, which operates the second train that derailed, told Cadena Ser radio station it was too early to say what caused the derailment. However, he said the accident occurred under “strange circumstances”, adding that “the possibility of human error has almost been ruled out”.
Preliminary results of the inspection
The first carriage of the train operated by Spanish company Iryo passed through a gap in the track, but the eighth and final carriage derailed, and the seventh and sixth carriages also derailed, the person said.
Iryo is a private railway operator majority-owned by Italy’s state-owned railway group Ferrovie dello Stato.
The source noted that a photo showing gaps in the vertical rails also appeared in an image of a handout shared with the media by the Spanish Civil Guard. The area was marked with a police incident number as forensic examiners took photos.
Officials including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Transport Minister Oscar Puente visited the crash site on Monday morning. After the accident, Sanchez canceled a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
