Train Crash

A high-speed Renfe train slammed into a train stopped on the tracks in central Spain, killing at least 68 people in the country's worst rail accident since 2013.

Near Urda, a town in Toledo province, the collision happened on the high-speed line linking Madrid and Seville, according to NPR. A state-owned Renfe train ran into the back of a stopped Iryo train, knocking cars off the tracks. More than 500 passengers filled the two trains, NBC News reported. Castilla-La Mancha's regional government put the death toll at 68. Counts of the injured varied by outlet. NPR reported 58 hospitalized. CNBC put the number injured at 50. The Guardian put the figure at 73 injured. Fifteen of them in serious condition.

Transport Minister Oscar Puente blamed a signal failure, not human error by the engineers, for the crash. He told reporters in Madrid that a computer malfunction knocked out the automatic stop system across a 63-kilometer stretch of track around 8:30 a.m., halting six trains, according to CNBC. A control center in Madrid then ordered the train to resume at full speed even though a stop signal remained active, the Guardian reported. The train ran about 25 kilometers before hitting the stationary Iryo train 17 minutes later. Puente called the order "inexplicable." "I am not attributing responsibility to anyone, I am just stating the facts," he said, according to NPR.

This is the second deadly high-speed crash to hit Spain this year. A January collision between trains from the same two companies killed 46 people, the Guardian reported, while CNBC put that toll at 45. Spain's high-speed network opened in 1992 and, until this year, had not recorded a fatal crash, NPR reported.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared three days of national mourning and visited the scene, the Guardian reported. He vowed that his government would investigate and take action "if there has been negligence," NBC News reported. Spain holds a snap election on Nov. 29, a vote Sanchez called after unrest over the country's housing crisis, CNBC reported. Vox party leader Santiago Abascal wrote on social media that the crash reflected "neglect" and "betrayal" by the government, CNBC reported. Adif, the rail infrastructure manager, is investigating the sequence of events, CNBC reported, citing the Spanish news agency EFE.

Rail service remained suspended between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia, NPR reported. Iryo said its train was "struck from behind" by the Renfe train and that the cause was "still unknown."