NEED TO KNOW
- At least 21 people died and dozens more were injured after a high-speed train derailed in Spain on Sunday, Jan. 18
- The derailed train, which was carrying more than 300 passengers, jumped the track and collided with an oncoming train carrying 200 people
- At least 73 people were injured, authorities said
At least 21 people died and dozens more were injured after a high-speed train derailed in Spain, jumping onto a neighboring track and slamming into an oncoming train.
According to reports from the Associated Press, CNN and The New York Times, the train was traveling between Malaga and Madrid near Córdoba at around 7:45 p.m. local time on Sunday, Jan. 18, when the incident occurred, Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente said.
More than 300 passengers were onboard when the train derailed and slammed into the oncoming train, which was carrying about 200 passengers traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, Railway Infrastructure Administrator (ADIF), the public manager of the railway network, confirmed.
Puente said after midnight on Monday, Jan. 19, that rescuers had removed all of the survivors from the trains, noting that more victims could still be identified, according to AP.
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Andalusian Regional Government Health Minister Antonio Sanz said that at least 73 others had been injured, per CNN.
The transport minister also said that the cause of the crash is still unknown, calling it a “truly strange” incident because the tracks, located on a flat stretch of land, had been renovated in May 2025.
The train that derailed, owned by private company Iryo, was less than four years old, Puente added. The second train was operated by Spain’s public train company, Renfe.
Puente shared that the back part of the first train derailed and collided with the front of the other train, knocking its first two cars off the track and down a 13-ft. slope. The front section of the Renfe train took the brunt of the damage, per AP.
“The impact has been terrible,” Puente wrote on X. “The number of victims cannot be confirmed at this time. The fundamental priority now is to assist the victims.”
The minister added that an investigation into the cause of the crash could take a month.
Iryo issued a statement saying that it “deeply lamented what has happened” and that the company had activated emergency protocols and was working with authorities to manage the situation, per CNN and AP.
According to AP, Cordoba fire chief Francisco Carmona told radio station RNE that one of the trains had been badly mangled, and four carriages had come off the rails.
The regional health chief, Antonio Sanz, said the situation at the crash site “is very serious.”
“We have a very difficult night ahead,” he said, per AP.
Salvador Jiménez, a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE, was on board one of the derailed trains at the time of the collision. During a phone interview, he recalled, “There was a moment when it felt like an earthquake, and the train had indeed derailed.”
According to Jiménez, passengers used emergency hammers to break the train windows, and regional Civil Protection chief María Belén Moya Rojas said that matters were made worse because the accident was in a difficult-to-reach area.
Local residents ended up bringing blankets and water to the scene.
ADIF confirmed that train services between Madrid and the Andalusia region would not run on Monday.
The New York Times reported that Spain ranks second worldwide in high-speed rail network length, only behind China.
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