Four US citizens were among at least 69 people killed when a high-speed train slammed into the back of a stationary train in central Spain, officials said Sunday.
Zoom in: The Center for Integrated Data, the Spanish body that identifies victims of mass-casualty events, said Sunday night that the dead also include one citizen each from Canada, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Tunisia and the Czech Republic.
- Fifty-four Spaniards plus a French and a Portuguese citizen were confirmed earlier. All but three victims have been identified, and two Australians and a Japanese citizen remain missing, per AFP and local media.
The backstory: On the morning of October 28 near Urda, in Toledo province, a state-owned Renfe high-speed train struck the rear of a halted Iryo train and derailed two cars. More than 540 people were aboard the two services, both running Madrid to Seville. Officials said 58 people were injured.
- Independent investigators put the Renfe train at between 100 and 125 mph at the moment of impact.
Between the lines: Transport Minister Oscar Puente has blamed a traffic controller's poor judgment for much of what went wrong. Railway unions push back, saying too few controllers now handle growing workloads as conditions deteriorate.
- Among the dead was Dr Marta Shahbazi, 41, a Cambridge Stem Cell Institute associate professor and group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, travelling to a conference to collect a Spanish Society of Developmental Biology prize. The lab called the mother of two an inspiring, talented and passionate scientist.
Why it matters: Spain operates the world's second-largest high-speed rail network after China's, and in more than three decades of service it recorded zero fatal crashes until this year. A January derailment on the same Madrid to Seville line killed 46.
