Families are desperately searching for missing loved ones after two high-speed trains collided in central Spain TOLEDO, Spain -- Families desperately searched for missing loved ones Thursday, more than 24 hours after two high-speed trains collided in central Spain, killing at least 69 and injuring dozens of others. I hope to find him, oh my Lord," said César Vicente, an actor who traveled 495 kilometers (307 miles) from his native Seville to Toledo in search of his father. He spent the night with many other families at a religious center converted into a base for those affected by the disaster.
Vicente was with his mother and his aunt, all of whom were looking for César Vicente, who was sitting in seat 13A on the RENFE train that struck another operated by the private company Iryo, which had stopped on the tracks. The family was among those who braved the cold to take a short walk on a chilly morning. This is unbearable,” he added.
In a post Wednesday on Instagram, Alejandra Marroquín told her followers that her sister Adriana, who was wearing dark blue clothes, was traveling in car 8 of the RENFE train and that they had been unable to contact her. This was the second high-speed rail disaster this year. In January, 46 people died after one train jumped the track and slammed into the side of another going the opposite way in southern Spain.
The high-speed rail network has been considered one of Spain’s crowning achievements. It is the world’s second-largest, after China’s. Until this year, it had not experienced a deadly crash since coming into service over three decades ago.
Life in Urda, a small town of about 2,500 people south of Madrid, was turned upside down early Wednesday. Residents rushed to help in any way they could: from assisting the injured to preparing sandwiches for the unharmed passengers, many of whom they even carried from the tracks to a nearby sports pavilion in their cars. David Gómez, a construction worker, was working with his brother and another colleague nearby when they heard the crash and ran to help, he told the newspaper El País.
We cut through some fences to access the area and treated people with the first-aid kits we had brought until emergency services arrived," he said. With 180 people injured, including 110 taken to hospitals, authorities issued a call for blood donations. The response was immediate: in Castilla-La Mancha alone, the region where the collision occurred, more than 2,000 people volunteered in the aftermath.
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