Scores Are Feared Dead as High-Speed Train Derails in Spain

[truebluefan]

A high-speed passenger train that was reportedly traveling at more than double the speed limit derailed just a few miles from a station in northwest Spain on Wednesday evening, with at least 56 of those on board feared dead, according to local news reports.

The train, carrying 218 passengers and four crew members, was traveling between Madrid and Ferrol when it derailed at 8:41 p.m. local time, the Spanish national train company Renfe said in a statement. It was four miles from the station in the city of Santiago de Compostela.

Citing unidentified sources, the Web site of the Spanish newspaper El País reported that the train had been traveling at 110 miles per hour, but that speed limit for the stretch of track where the derailment occurred was 50. The force of the derailment was such that one car leapt 15 feet in the air and 45 feet from the tracks, the newspaper said.

Read more http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/w...s-high-speed-train-derails-in-spain.html?_r=0

 

[truebluefan]

78 dead after train derails, splits apart in Spain

The train races into view, and in the space of a heartbeat, the cars derail and crash into a wall of concrete, flipping onto their sides and skidding along the track with terrifying speed and force.

Security footage shows the horror of the moment an express train derailed as it hurtled around a curve in northwestern Spain on Wednesday, killing at least 78 people and injuring more than 140, local officials said.

Flames burst out of one train car as another car was snapped in half after the crash. Rescue crews and fellow passengers pulled bodies through broken windows and pried open doors as stunned survivors looked on.

At least 73 people died at the scene and others at the hospital, said María Pardo Ríos, a spokeswoman for the Galicia regional supreme court. In Spain, judges typically record deaths that take place outside of hospitals.

Read more http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/25/world/europe/spain-train-crash/