“We felt the first jolt and, in a fraction of a second, another very strong one,” Bianca Birleanu, 23, from Huelva, who was travelling on the Alvia train from Madrid to Huelva told Spain’s El Pais newspaper.
“The table in front of our seat fell on top of us, the lights went out, and the carriage roof collapsed.”
“Carriage number two was all rubble, a mangled mess. And the other one was also badly damaged, everything was destroyed,” said her partner, Jorge Garcia, also 23.
A passenger on the second train, who was not identified, told public broadcaster TVE: “There were people screaming, their bags fell from the shelves. I was travelling to Huelva in the fourth carriage, the last, luckily.”
Salvador Jimenez, a journalist for TVE who was on board the Iryo train, shared photos showing the nose of that train’s rear carriage lying on its side, with evacuated passengers sitting on its upturned side.
Mr Jimenez told TVE by phone from beside the damaged trains that passengers had used emergency hammers to smash the windows and climb out, and they had seen two people hauled from overturned carriages on stretchers.
“It is a very dark day for Andalusia, we are in shock,” said Juanma Moreno, the president of Andalusia, as reported by RTVE News.
High-speed trains collide after one derails in Spain, killing at least 21
