Spain has declared three days of national mourning after the severe railway accident, where at least 68 people have lost their lives and dozens more have been injured.

The event is considered one of the most serious railway accidents in Europe’s modern history, writes the BBC, broadcast Duguagjini.

Emergency teams have been working all night, under the bright lighting of reflectors, cutting out metal parts of cars and looking for victims. Many of the people who lost their lives have not yet been identified.

Spanish authorities have begun investigating the causes of the accident, which occurred Wednesday morning when a train traveling from Madrid to Seville crashed into another train that was stopped on the tracks.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said the whole country is in mourning.

All of Spain is in mourning. Lives are destroyed, families are separated and pain is extraordinary, Sánchez stated.

According to Spain’s Interior Ministry, hundreds of members of emergency teams are engaged at the site of the event to assist in search-saving operations. Fears and helicopters have also been used to locate victims and remove the ruins.

Spanish Minister of Transport, slaincar Puente, has announced that the train of the private railway company Iryo, which had stopped on the track, had 147 passengers aboard. According to him, the train had stopped because of a defect in the computer system.

Puente explained that, in the event of a system failure, the control gets a 24-hour centre in Madrid. However, according to the minister, this centre had made a decision that he described as inexplicable, guiding trains to resume without speed limits.

Audio communications records between train controllers in Madrid and the conductors seem to indicate that one of the high-speed trains had been given permission to continue moving, although another train had been stopped before him.

The Iryo Company has declared that its train was backbound by another train, operated by the state railway company Renfe, which had 397 passengers aboard.

The power of the crash caused several cars to climb off the tracks and end up on steep terrain below the railway level.

The Witnesses have described serious scenes after the accident, saying that passengers were shouting, covered in blood, and trapped in their seats. Smoke had spread in some cars, and one of them was on fire.

Prime Minister Sánchez has ruled Spain unacceptable for facing two serious railway accidents within a year. In January, 46 people lost their lives in a high – speed train accident near Cordoba, on the same railway line, but farther south.

After the accident, most political parties have suspended their campaigns for the upcoming elections, in respect for victims and their families.

The exception has made the far-right Vox party. Its leader, Santiago Abascal, said the party would not participate in what he described as an attempt to use mourning to silence criticism of the country’s railway infrastructure.

Source Layer: Dukeagini