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USA, Canada, now Spain. Is this some sort of uncanny accident season in Europe?
July 24, 2013
Madrid (CNN) — A high-speed passenger train derailed as it hurtled around a curve in northwestern Spain on Wednesday, killing nearly 60 people and injuring more than 100, a regional official said.
Pictures of the scene showed a train car snapped in two and another car on fire. Rescue crews and fellow passengers pulled out bodies through broken windows and pried open doors as stunned survivors looked on. Police escorted bloodied passengers from the wreckage.
The crash killed more than 56 people, said Agustin Hernandez Fernandez of the Galicia infrastructure ministry. More than 20 injured victims remained in critical condition early Thursday, he said.
State railway Renfe said the train crashed on a curve several kilometers from the train station in the city of Santiago de Compostela.
The train had 218 passengers aboard and was nearing the end of a six-hour trip from Madrid to the town of Ferrol in northwest Spain when it derailed at 8:41 p.m., the railway said.
It was unclear how fast the train was traveling when it crashed. The train was capable of going up to 250 kilometers per hour (155 mph), the chief spokesman for Renfe said.
Residents who lived near the tracks told the Voz de Galicia newspaper that they heard a thunderous bang when the train crashed. Many of them rushed to the area with blankets and bottled water for the injured, the newspaper reported.
“The train had broken in half. Some pieces were on top, some pieces were on the bottom,” said Ivette Rubiera Cabrera of Florida, who caught a glimpse of the wreckage while on a family vacation in Spain and sent photos to CNN’s iReport. Read more
