BARCELONA, Spain — A Barcelona commuter train crashed Tuesday after a retaining wall fell onto the tracks, Spanish regional authorities said, killing at least one person and injuring 37 others.
The crash in Catalonia in northeastern Spain came just two days after a separate deadly train collision killed at least 42 people in the country’s south and injured dozens more.
Emergency workers Tuesday were still searching for more victims in the wreckage from Sunday’s deadly train accident, which took place about 500 miles away, as the nation began three days of mourning.
Emergency services in Catalonia said of the 37 people affected by Tuesday’s crash, five were seriously injured. Six others were in less serious condition. Emergency services said 20 ambulances had been sent to the site of the crash, and that the injured were taken to hospitals in the area. Regional firefighters said most of the injured had ridden in the first train car.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez acknowledged the Barcelona area crash, writing on X: “All my affection and solidarity with the victims and their families.”
While Spain’s high-speed rail network generally runs smoothly, and at least until Sunday had been a source of confidence, the commuter rail service is plagued by reliability issues. However, accidents causing injury or death are not common in either.
The commuter train crashed near the town of Gelida, located about 35 minutes outside Barcelona.
Spain’s railway operator ADIF said the containment wall most likely collapsed due to heavy rainfall that swept across the northeastern Spanish region this week. Commuter train service was canceled along the line, it said.
The Sunday crash happened at 7:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m. ET) when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Málaga to the capital, Madrid, derailed and crashed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern city, according to rail operator Adif. Authorities were still recovering more bodies on Tuesday.
Fidel Sáez lost his mother in the wreck, but his two children, his brother and a nephew survived. Their trip to the capital to see the musical “The Lion King” turned into a nightmare on the way home.
“My brother has been taken off respirator. He told me that it was a miracle that he is alive. He had to get the children through a window,” Sáez told national TV broadcaster TVE. “He also asked me to tell the story of our mother, how good she was.”
Health authorities said 39 people remained in hospitals on Tuesday morning, while 83 people had been treated and discharged.
Among them was Emil Johnson, a Swedish citizen based in Málaga who was traveling to Madrid to renew his passport.
“It was probably two, three seconds. And everything was broken,” Jonsson, sitting in a wheelchair due to bruises on his ribs and back and dressed in part of a hospital gown, told reporters. “When we crashed, I didn’t know who was alive and who was dead.”
Amid the tragedy, it emerged that a 6-year-old girl who survived the wreck was virtually unscathed, while her parents, brother and cousin all perished.
The mayor of their hometown called her survival a “miracle.”
The front of the second train, which was carrying 184 people, took the brunt of the impact, which knocked its first two carriages off the track and down a 13-foot slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of feet from the crash site, according to Andalusia regional President Juanma Moreno.
Associated Press images taken Tuesday showed the remains of the first two cars of the second train, severed from the rest of the train and lying beside the tracks. Train seats had been ejected onto the rocks that provide packing under the tracks.
