The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, returned this Friday to the CECOPI set up at the headquarters of the 112 Emergency Service of Castilla-La Mancha in Toledo, where he arrived after 10:00 a.m. and for the second consecutive day, this time without the presence of the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente.
Puente is scheduled to give a press conference at 11:30 a.m. at the headquarters of his Ministry in Madrid to report on the railway accident recorded last Wednesday in Urda (Toledo), in which 69 people have lost their lives after an Iryo train was struck by an AVE train of Renfe that was traveling on the same track, both departing from Madrid and bound for Sevilla.
Puente's appearance, which was not initially on the Government's official agenda for this Friday, will be held after the Independent Administrative Authority for the Technical Investigation of Railway, Maritime and Civil Aviation Accidents and Incidents (Aitat), the body responsible for clarifying what happened in Urda (Toledo), has communicated that all lines of investigation into the causes of the accident remain open and has avoided "venturing" possible explanations.
In an informational note consulted by Europa Press, Aitat indicates that, given that the investigation is still in an initial phase, all hypotheses regarding the causes and factors that could have intervened in the accident "are open and explanations beyond the established data cannot be ventured". "The conclusions of the investigation will be reflected, in due course, in the final report," it emphasizes.
Aitat opened this Thursday the investigation file for the railway accident, to which it has assigned the category of 'serious'.
According to the Authority in said note, the rear-end collision between the two trains occurred at 8:53 a.m., at kilometer point 118+800 of track 2 of the high-speed line 010 Madrid-Sevilla, at the access to the Urda station.
The Iryo company train, made up of eight carriages, with 147 passengers and five crew members on board, remained stopped in front of the station entrance signal when it was hit from the rear by the AVE train, which was carrying 379 passengers and seven crew members distributed in eight cars, at an estimated speed of between 160 and 200 kilometers per hour. The exact speed will be determined once the data from the onboard legal recorder are analyzed.
The impact caused the front car of the AVE (carriage 8) to become embedded in the last car of the Iryo (carriage 1), with both being "overturned and turned at the foot of the track embankment".
The rest of the AVE convoy derailed completely: the last six cars remained on the platform, while car number 7 plunged down the embankment. In addition, car 3 was pierced by a fragment of deformed track rail as a result of the collision.
As for the Iryo train, in addition to the damage to its rear car, all the carriages derailed except the first two (numbers 7 and 8), which also ended up falling down the embankment.
To prepare this first assessment, the technical teams sent by the Aitat have inspected on the ground the exact point of the accident, the affected railway infrastructure and the trains involved. They have also analyzed the telephone log and the recordings of the communications recorded at the moment of the collision.
The Aitat has conveyed its gratitude for the cooperation provided by the various entities involved, the emergency services and the law enforcement forces and bodies present at the site of the railway accident, and has expressed its condolences to the victims and their relatives, to whom it has reiterated that it is at their disposal.