54 hurt in Barcelona commuter train crash
BARCELONA: A commuter train slammed into the end of the platform during the morning rush hour at a busy station here yesterday, leaving 54 people injured, emergency services said.
One person was seriously injured, 19 were injured “less seriously”, including the driver, and 34 were lightly injured in the accident at Francia station in the centre of the Spanish city, local emergency services said on Twitter.
A French citizen and a Romanian were among the injured, a spokesman for the civil protection agency said. The rest were Spanish nationals.
The regional train, travelling from the town of Sant Vicenc de Calders, ran into buffers at 7.15am, a spokesman for Spanish train operator Renfe said.
At the time of the accident, many passengers were standing up in the busy carriages, which increased the number of injuries.
“At the moment of impact, I had the feeling of experiencing an earthquake. People were swaying back and forth, and colliding into each other,” Lidia, who was travelling in the first carriage of the train, told Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia.
“Many people fell to the ground because people were standing up and I saw several people with cuts to the head and face from the blows they suffered when they fell,” she added.
Pictures from the scene posted on social media showed the interior of the train covered in shattered glass. Others showed firefighters treating injured commuters on the platform.
The train did not brake when entering the station, a security guard said.
“It was going at normal speed, it did not brake and it crashed into an iron pillar,” he said.
The front of the train was crumpled by the impact. Streets around the station, the city’s second busiest, were closed off to allow emergency vehicles to get through.
The accident coincided with the start of a national rail strike, which forced the cancellation of hundreds of trains.
The head of the regional government of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, was at the scene of the crash.
“I am following closely the developments regarding the commuter train crash in Barcelona. I wish a quick and completely recovery for the injured,” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a Twitter message.
The accident comes as Spain this week marked the fourth anniversary of one of the country’s worst rail disasters in which 80 people died in 2013 near the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.
The train from Madrid crashed as it hurtled round a sharp bend at 179kph, more than twice the speed limit for that stretch of track, in the village of Angrois. AFP