78 die in Spain's rail disaster

Driver quoted as saying he was going at twice the speed limit

A train flew off the tracks as it reportedly tore around a bend at twice the speed limit in northwest Spain, killing at least 78 passengers and injuring more than 140 in the nation's deadliest rail disaster since 1944.

Carriages piled into each other and overturned in the accident late on Wednesday, smoke billowing from the wreckage of mangled steel and smashed windows, as bodies were lain out under blankets along the tracks.

State railway company Renfe said it was too early to determine the cause, but several media outlets said the train carrying 218 passengers and four crew was going too fast.

It came off the tracks on a curve at 8:42 pm on Wednesday as it was about to enter Santiago de Compostela station in the Galicia region.

One of the drivers, who was trapped in the train cab after the accident, told railway officials by radio shortly after the crash that the train had taken the curve at 190 km per hour, unidentified investigation sources told El Pais newspaper.

The speed limit on that section of track is 80km/h.

"I was going at 190. I hope no one died, because it will weigh on my conscience," he said, according to the online edition of the newspaper.

The train's eight carriages derailed on a stretch of high-speed track about 4 km from the station in the city, the destination of a pilgrimage that has been followed by Christians since the Middle Ages.

The train was the Alvia model, which is able to adapt between high-speed and normal tracks.

It had left Madrid and was heading for the shipbuilding coastal town of Ferrol as Galicia prepared celebrations in honor of its patron saint James.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a native of Santiago de Compostela, arrived at the scene of the accident before visiting victims in hospital on Thursday.

Rajoy declared three days of mourning, while King Juan Carlos and Crown Prince Felipe called off their public engagements out of respect for the victims.

Earlier on Thursday, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, head official in the region, declared seven days mourning in Galicia.

"There are bodies on the railway track. It's a Dante-esque scene," Feijoo said on radio. Several witnesses spoke of a loud explosion at the time of the accident.

"I was at home and I heard something like a clap of thunder. It was very loud and there was lots of smoke," said 62-year-old Maria Teresa Ramos, who lives just meters from the scene of the accident.

"People are crying out. Nobody has ever seen anything like this," she added.

Rescue workers recovered 73 bodies from the train's wreckage and four more victims died later in hospital, a spokesman for the Galicia High Court said.

Provincial officials later said the toll had risen by one. More than 140 people were reported to have been injured.

It is Spain's worst rail accident since 1944, when hundreds were killed in a train collision, also between Madrid and Galicia.

Renfe said the train had no technical problems and had passed an inspection on the morning of the accident.

"The maintenance record and control of the train was perfect," Renfe head Julio Gomez-Pomar Rodriguez told a radio station.

According to Renfe, the cause of the accident is unknown.

A spokeswoman for Spain's Interior Ministry said the possibility that the derailment was caused by a terrorist attack has been ruled out.

She spoke on condition of anonymity because of ministry policy.

A Renfe spokesman said: "An investigation is underway and we have to wait. We will know what the speed was very soon when we examine the train's black box."

The accident is the third large rail disaster this month after six people died in a passenger train derailment near Paris on July 12 and 47 were killed when an oil train derailed and exploded in Canada on July 6.

AFP-AP-Xinhua

(China Daily 07/26/2013 page12)