At least 64 people were killed and about 80 injured when a high-speed train ran into the back of a stationary train on the Madrid–Seville line in central Spain early on Wednesday. The toll has risen through the day and is expected to rise further.
A Renfe AVE high-speed service travelling from Madrid to Seville, carrying 397 passengers, struck an Iryo train carrying 147 passengers that was halted on the line near Urda, in Toledo province, south of Madrid, Al Jazeera reported.
Of those injured, about 50 were seriously hurt and 15 critically. Regional president Emiliano García-Page warned that some of the most seriously injured might not survive.
A rear-end collision at speed
Both newsrooms describe the same sequence: a train stopped on an open high-speed line, and a second train arriving behind it at speed.
Hiru News reported at 7.26 p.m. Colombo time that the Iryo train had been stopped on the line because of a signal fault, and that the Renfe high-speed train then struck it from behind at high speed — attributing that account to Reuters. Al Jazeera, reporting independently, says the cause was not immediately clear.
Those two statements are not a contradiction: one is an account of what had halted the first train, relayed from a wire; the other is a statement about the cause of the collision itself, which is a separate question and remains open. No investigating authority’s finding is reported by either outlet, and this report does not treat the signal fault as an established cause of the crash.
Carriages down an embankment
Carriages on both trains derailed. Al Jazeera reports that two Iryo carriages derailed and fell down an embankment; Hiru, following the wire account, says three carriages fell. The discrepancy is recorded rather than resolved — neither account is corroborated by the other on the figure, and early casualty-scene counts are routinely revised.
Hundreds of ambulances, helicopters and rescue teams were deployed to search for people trapped in the wreckage. Rescuers concentrated on the two most badly damaged carriages, working on both survivor rescue and the recovery of bodies.
Reaction
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he was “shocked by the serious train accident in Toledo”. Health Minister Mónica García said the injured were being taken to hospitals in the area. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “Today, Europe mourns with you.”
Spanish football authorities postponed 24 Copa del Rey fixtures following the crash.
Spain’s third rail disaster of the year
This is the deadliest rail accident in Spain since 2013, when 80 people were killed. It follows a derailment near Adamuz in southern Spain nine months ago, in January 2026, in which 45 people died.
A caution on matching this story. The January 2026 Adamuz crash and Wednesday’s collision are separate events, and search results for “Spanish high-speed train crash” return both under near-identical headlines. The discriminators here are the 28 October date, the Urda/Toledo location, and the Renfe-into-Iryo rear-end sequence; Adamuz was a derailment in Córdoba province.
The toll has moved through the day
Hiru filed earlier on Wednesday putting the death toll at 39. Al Jazeera’s own picture gallery of the crash was published while the figure stood at 30. The 64 figure is the most recent reported at the time of writing and is explicitly described as provisional, with the number expected to rise as the search continues.
Not reported
Neither source gives the time of the collision, the names or nationalities of any casualties, or whether any Sri Lankans were aboard. Neither says how many of the dead were on which train, though the derailed carriages were on the Iryo service.
Neither identifies the investigating authority, says whether criminal or safety investigations have been opened, or reports any statement from Renfe, Iryo or the infrastructure manager. Neither says when the line is expected to reopen or what the effect on services is.
On the cause, no account from a source this desk could fetch and date names the signalling systems in use or attributes an error to any controller. Material of that kind circulating in search summaries could not be traced to a citable report and is not published here.
A note on sourcing. Hiru’s account is attributed to Reuters, so Hiru and the wire are one document rather than two independent reports. Al Jazeera’s is independent of it. This article rests on those two.
