A driver has died and 37 are left injured after a train has derailed in Spain. The commuter train came off the tracks in Barcelona on Tuesday evening (January 20) just two days after a horrific train collision in the southern side of the country that took 42 lives.
The incident occurred due to a retaining wall collapsing onto the tracks, according to Spanish authorities. The Rodalies train crashed between Gelida and Sant Sadurní.
At least 37 people have been injured, according to local media reports, and five of these are seriously injured according to emergency services.
The crash around 35km from Barcelona prompted the dispatch of fifteen ambulances and 35 fire crews to the scene, according to Spanish news agency EFE. Fire services have said that one passenger was trapped inside the train and has been rescued.
The emergency services have confirmed that no-one remained in the carriages and a sweep of the area was being carried out, according to the BBC.
Those injured have been rushed to Moisès Broggi, Bellvitge, and Vila Franca hospitals. The derailment occurred as heavy storms are battering north-eastern Spain with severe weather warnings in place and heavy rainfall.
The news comes as the country enters three days of national mourning for the victims of Sunday’s (January 18) catastrophic train collision. The horrific incident saw a northbound train jump the tracks and collide head on with a southbound train in Spain’s Córdoba province, causing widespread death and destruction.
The tragedy left 42 dead with many more suffering injuries and required a huge operation to check if anybody remained in the “twisted wreck” of the vehicles.
Sunday’s disaster took place at 7:45pm, when the rear end of a train carrying 289 passengers from Malaga to Madrid derailed and collided with an oncoming train travelling from Madrid to Huelva, another city in the south, as per rail operator Adif.
Fidel Saez also returning from the musical lost his mother in the devastating incident, though his two children, brother and nephew all made it out alive. “My brother has been taken off respirator. He told me that it was a miracle that he is alive. He had to get the children through a window,” Saez told national TV broadcaster TVE.
“He also asked me to tell the story of our mother, how good she was.” The front of the Madrid to Huelva train took the full force of the collision, sending its first two carriages off the tracks and tumbling down an embankment, with victims hurled hundreds of metres from the wreckage, according to Andalusia regional President Juanma Moren.
