Train derails near Barcelona just days after high-speed crash left at least 40 dead
A train driver has been killed and at least 37 people injured after a commuter train derailed in Spain just days after a deadly two-train collision on Sunday.
The train crashed into a retaining wall which had fallen onto the rails near Barcelona yesterday evening.
All passengers were removed from the train and 37 were treated for injuries, with five in a serious condition.
Most the people injured were in first carriage, which bore the brunt of the impact against the wall, El Pais reports.
The wall is believed to have collapsed onto the tracks due to erosion caused by heavy rain after storms raged over north-eastern Spain in recent days.
Eleven ambulances were sent to the crash site between Sant Sadurní d’Anoia and Gelida stations – 21.7 miiles west of Barcelona – after the derailment was reported at 9.02pm local time (8.02pm GMT).
One passenger trapped inside the wreckage was also rescued, according to the local fire service.
The collision came as another train derailed on the Barcelona commuter network on Tuesday.
The train was running between Blanes and Maçanet-Massanes when ‘the axle was struck by a rock dislodged by the storm,’ according to Spain’s rail network operator Adif.
There were no injuries and services were suspended.
Train traffic has been suspended across the entire network in Catalonia.
The Spanish Union of Railway Drivers has called for the entire railway infrastructure to be inspected to assess the impact of recent storms and for Catalan commuter services to be suspended ‘until further notice’.
The two derailments follows the deaths of at least 42 people in Spain on Sunday after two high-speed trains collided in Spain.
A train bound for the Spanish capital, Madrid, crossed into an adjacent track, causing an ‘incredibly violent impact’ with a train heading to the port city of Huelva in the Andalusia region.
The Huelva-bound train derailed on impact while travelling at 124 mph (200 km/h) and plunged down a railway embankment at Adamuz in Cordoba.
The trains were carrying four hundred passengers and staff, leaving a number of people trapped in the wreckage and flinging others ‘hundreds of meters away’.
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