After the devastating train accident in the south of Spain, an official investigative commission named the breakage of a rail as a possible cause in an initial preliminary assessment.
The investigations into the serious train accident in Spain are still ongoing.Image: keystone
The collision between two high-speed trains near the town of Adamuz in the Andalusian province of Córdoba on Sunday evening killed 45 people, including a German woman. More than 120 people were injured, some seriously.
The last cars of an Iryo train had derailed and ended up on the siding. An oncoming Renfe train collided with these wagons and was thrown off the track at a speed of more than 200 kilometers per hour.
The State Railway Accident Investigation Commission Ciaf stressed in its preliminary report that notches were found on the treads of the wheels of the Iryo train. These notches and the observed deformation of the rails indicated that a rail had already broken before the Iryo train ran over it and derailed, according to the report published by the Ministry of Transport. Similar notches were also found on the wheels of three other trains that had recently passed this section of the route.
Rail samples would now be sent to a metallographic laboratory to determine the possible causes of the fracture. But other hypotheses about the cause of the accident cannot be ruled out, the commission emphasized. (sda/dpa)