The number of people killed in a high-speed train crash in Spain is expected to rise in the coming hours as cranes begin moving the wreckage.
Another body was found overnight – taking the total number to 41 – following Sunday’s collision in Cordoba province.
Interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said at least three deceased people had been seen still trapped in the debris.
Police also confirmed to Sky News that 43 people were “missing” following reports from their families, mirroring the provisional number of victims.
At least 159 people were also injured in the collision, which involved two trains travelling around 130mph (209kmh). Health authorities said 39 remained in hospital on Tuesday morning, with 83 treated and discharged.
Sky News Europe correspondent Alistair Bunkall, who’s at the scene, said more bodies were expected to be recovered when cranes move at least one of the carriages on Tuesday morning.
The trains crashed near the town of Adamuz, about 230 miles (370km) south of Madrid, when the end of a Malaga to Madrid service derailed and crossed the tracks.
It was hit by a train travelling from the Spanish capital to Huelva, in the southern Andalusia region. El Pais newspaper reported the 27-year-old driver was among those killed.
A source told Reuters a faulty rail joint was a potential cause, but Bunkall said authorities seem “totally baffled as to why the first train derailed”.
Unions had previously complained about wear and tear on that stretch of track but it was upgraded at great expense in May, Bunkall added.
Fernandez Heredia, the boss of Renfe, Spain‘s national railway company, has ruled out human error, while Spain’s transport minister Oscar Puente called the crash “truly strange” as it happened on a flat stretch of track.
He said the back of the derailed train had slammed into the other service, knocking its first two carriages off the track and down a 4m slope.
Read more:
How Spain’s deadly train crash happened
Footage showed passengers climbing out of smashed windows, and some survivors have described making decisions that may have saved their lives.
Lola Beltran told Spanish broadcaster TVE she had moved seats from one of the worst-affected carriages to sit with a colleague moments before the crash.
Bianca Birleanu, 23, who was travelling to Huelva, told newspaper El Pais: “We felt the first jolt and, in a fraction of a second, another very strong one.
“The table in front of our seat fell on top of us, the lights went out, and the carriage roof collapsed.”
King Felipe and Queen Letizia are due to follow Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and visit the rural crash site on Tuesday.
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Spain’s recent rail safety record is among the best in the EU, according to the European Commission. Eighteen people were killed in rail accidents in 2024, the equivalent of around one per 1,000km of tracks.
The worst Spanish railway accident this century was a train derailment in Santiago de Compostela in July 2013, which killed 79 people.
