Costa del Sol train derails leaving 37 injured

A total of thirty-seven people have been injured, two of them seriously, as a result of a train derailing on the line between Seville and Malaga. The accident, according to the first hypothesis, was due to water infiltration around the tracks, a consequence of the recent heavy rainfall.

The train, which was carrying 79 passengers at the time, derailed at 10.15am between Utrera and Marchena, close to Arahal in the province of Seville.

The emergency services had to use tractors, quad bikes and army vehicles to reach the accident zone as heavy rainfall the previous night had flooded the surrounding fields and rendered the access roads virtually unpassable. Many of the emergency personnel trekked 3km across the fields rather than wait for alternative vehicles.

The help provided by local farmers proved indispensable, with many of them bringing in tractors to help the ambulances get through the accident zone. Such was the response from the local agricultural community that a request not to send any more tractors had to be issued at 11am in order to prevent a traffic jam on the local roads.

Farmers took the emergency personnel as close as they could, and then RENFE provided a small train to cover the last remaining kilometre of track to where the derailed train lay.

The cause of the accident is still being investigated, but it is believed to have been due to the heavy overnight rainfall in the area. It appears that the earth subsided under a stretch of track just before the mouth of a tunnel, and whilst the first two carriages stayed on the rails, the third came off, causing the accident.

The evidence suggestst that the train carried on travelling for another 200 metres or so with the third carriage off the rails, before crashing into one of the tunnel walls. The collision bounced the carriage back onto the tracks and the train travelled a short distance further before the driver managed to bring it to a stop.

One of the passengers caught up in the accident, Rosa Cañete from Torremolinos (Málaga), told the media that before the accident happened, passengers had been told that they would have to transfer to another route because of the poor condition of the line, but that their service had then continued as scheduled.

Susana Díaz, the president of the Junta de Andalucái, has demanded that ADIF "explain why they opened a line that was clearly in an unsafe condition".