Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, has said he will not resign over a high-speed rail collision that has left at least 69 people dead. Speaking at a news conference in Madrid, he said he had “nothing to hide” and restated the government’s commitment to uncover what caused the disaster.
Puente said many questions still needed answers. He argued that his immediate responsibility was to fix the problem rather than debate his own position, saying: “My duty right now is not to talk about whether I should remain in my position, but to resolve the problem.”
Minister faces mounting calls to step down
Puente has come under pressure to quit from political rivals, a trade union and demonstrators who protested outside the transport ministry on Wednesday night. The conservative People’s Party joined the demands after the trade union CSIF made the same call earlier this week.
Also read: Spain train collision kills at least 68 south of Madrid · Spain high-speed train collision kills 30, toll may rise
On Friday, Puente said he would not change his position. “The easy thing for me would be to leave, but neither that fits with my character nor is it what the Prime Minister has asked me to do,” he said. He also described feeling deep pain and sadness for the victims and their relatives, adding that he could not let that grief stop him from finding solutions.
Investigators examine the Urda collision and its warning signs
Dozens were killed on Wednesday morning when a state-operated Renfe high-speed train crashed into the rear of a stationary train run by the Iryo company near Urda, in the central Toledo province. A preliminary report released late on Thursday by transport investigators said the Renfe train was travelling between 160km/h (99.4mph) and 200km/h at the time, pushing its front carriage into the tail of the stationary train.
Puente said a computer failure at about 08:30 that morning caused the initial halt of six moving trains, including the two that later collided. Three audio recordings between the Madrid control centre and two train drivers, published in Spanish media, appear to show that one high-speed train was cleared to move even though another had stalled on the track about 25km (15 miles) ahead. Puente had described the decision to order the trains to move again, without any speed restrictions, as “inexplicable.”
The leaking of the recordings drew criticism from some Spanish politicians. Alberto Ibáñez, a member of Congress for the left-wing Sumar platform, called the leak “despicable” in a post on X. Irene Montero, the prime ministerial candidate for the left-wing Podemos party, said responsibility should not fall on a single worker and noted that train drivers and experts had warned for years against liberalising the railway sector.
On Friday, Puente said he was “not going to use any worker as a shield.” He added that the tragedy raised many questions he wanted to examine one by one, and said that if the investigation found human error, authorities would act accordingly.
Earlier on Friday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said public trust in Spain’s high-speed rail network had been broken. He called it “unacceptable” that two similar tragedies had occurred within a year. In January, a collision on the same Madrid-Seville route killed 46 people in Adamuz, in southern Spain. Wednesday’s crash was one of the worst rail disasters in Europe’s modern history and Spain’s deadliest since 2013.
Families wait for word as Spain observes three days of mourning
Spain is observing three days of mourning while the families of victims and survivors try to understand how the crash could have happened. A 24-year-old athlete and a former government minister are among those killed, but many relatives are still waiting for information from the authorities about their loved ones.
Esther San Emeterio, whose 54-year-old brother Pepe is still missing, told reporters in Toledo, near Urda, that officials were leaving families in “uncertainty.” “We went to bed crying, outraged and full of shame,” she said. “We are desperate and I want all of Spain to know. How can they keep us like this?”
