Santiago de Compostela, Spain - A train hurtled off the tracks in northwest Spain killing at least 77 passengers and injuring more than 140, an official said on Thursday, with the media suggesting the tragedy could be due to speeding.
Bodies covered in blankets lay next to the four overturned carriages as smoke billowed from the wreckage. Firefighters clambered over the twisted metal trying to get survivors out of the windows, while ambulances and fire engines surrounded the scene.
The wagons were piled into each other and folded up like an accordion. One was ripped apart by the force of the crash, one of its ends pushed up into the air.
Several witnesses spoke of a loud explosion.
“I was at home and I heard something like a clap of thunder, It was very loud and there was lots of smoke,” said 62-year-old Maria Teresa Ramos, who lived just metres from where the accident happened.
“It's a disaster, people are crying out. Nobody has ever seen anything like this,” she added.
The accident happened at 8.42pm on Wednesday as the train carrying 218 passengers and four staff was about to enter Santiago de Compostela station in the northwestern region of Galicia.
Rescue workers recovered 73 bodies from the train's wreckage and four more victims died later in hospital, said a spokesman for the Galicia high court, increasing an earlier toll figure.
“It was going so quickly… It seems that on a curve the train started to twist, and the wagons piled up one on top of the other,” passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station.
“A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realised the train was burning… I was in the second wagon and there was fire… I saw corpses,” he added.
The government said it was working on the assumption the derailment, which occurred on the eve of Santiago de Compostela's main religious festival, was an accident.
El Pais newspaper cited sources close to the investigation as saying the train was travelling at over twice the speed limit on a sharp curve.
Both Renfe and state-owned Adif, which is in charge of the tracks, had opened an investigation into the cause of the derailment, Renfe said.
An official source said no statement would be made regarding the cause until the black boxes of the train were examined, but said it was most likely an accident.
“We are moving away from the hypothesis of sabotage or attack,” he said.
The Santiago de Compostela train operated by state rail company Renfe with 247 people on board derailed as the city prepared for the festival of Saint James, when thousands of Christian pilgrims from across the world pack the streets.
The city's tourism board said all festivities, including the traditional High Mass at the centuries-old cathedral, were cancelled as the city went into mourning following the crash.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, will visit the site on Thursday morning, his spokeswoman said.
“In the face of a tragedy such as just happened in Santiago de Compostela on the eve of its big day, I can only express my deepest sympathy as a Spaniard and a Galician,” Rajoy said in a statement.
Clinics in Santiago de Compostela were overwhelmed with people flocking to give blood, while hotels organised free rooms for relatives. Madrid sent forensic scientists and hospital staff to the region on special flights.
“The scene is shocking, it's Dante-esque,” said the head of the surrounding Galicia region, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, in a radio interview.
The eight-carriage train was travelling from Madrid to Ferrol on the Galician coast when it derailed, Renfe said in a statement.
Francisco Otero, 39, who was inside his parents' home just beside the section of the track where the accident happened, said he “heard a huge bang. As if there had been an earthquake.”
“The first thing I saw was the body of a woman. I had never seen a corpse before. But above all what caught my attention was that there was a lot of silence, some smoke and a small fire,” he told AFP.
“My neighbours tried to pull out people who were trapped inside the carriages with the help of pickaxes and sledgehammers and they eventually got them out with a hand saw. It was unreal.”
The train had left Madrid and was heading for the town of Ferrol as the Galicia region was preparing celebrations in honour of its patron saint James.
A witness told radio Cadena Ser that carriages overturned several times on a bend and came to a halt piled up on each other.
Public television TVE said the train may have derailed because it was speeding at the time of the accident but a spokesman for state railway company Renfe said it was too soon to say what caused the accident.
“There is an investigation underway and we have to wait. We will know what the speed is very soon when we consult the train's black box,” a Renfe spokesman said.
Pope Francis called for prayers for the victims.
“He joins the families in their sorrow and calls for prayers ... in this tragic event,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters during the pope's visit to Rio de Janeiro.
The town hall of Santiago de Compostela called off planned concerts and firework displays that had been planned as part of the festivities in honour of its patron saint.
The disaster was one of the worst in the history of Spain's rail network.
In 1944, hundreds were killed in a crash also between Madrid and Galicia.
In 1972, 77 people were killed in a derailment in Andalusia in the south. - Sapa-AFP, Reuters