Death toll in Spanish train collision rises to 39 and authorities say it
could still rise
[January 19, 2026]
By IAIN SULLIVAN, JOSEPH WILSON and SUMAN NAISHADHAM
ADAMUZ, Spain (AP) — Spanish police said Monday that at least 39 people
are confirmed dead in a high-speed train collision the previous night in
the south of the country.
Efforts to recover the bodies are continuing and the death toll is
likely to rise. Some passengers were catapulted through windows and
their bodies were found hundreds of meters from the crash site,
Andalusia regional president Juanma Moreno said.
The crash occurred Sunday at 7:45 p.m. when the tail end of a train
carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid,
went off the rails at 7:45 p.m. It slammed into an incoming train
traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city,
according to rail operator Adif.
The head of the second train, which was carrying nearly 200 passengers,
took the brunt of the impact, Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente
said. That collision knocked its first two carriages off the track and
sent them plummeting down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. Puente said that it
appeared the largest number of the deaths occurred in those carriages.
Authorities said all the survivors had been rescued in the early morning
while work remained to recover and identify the dead.
Moreno said Monday morning that emergency services were still searching.
“It is likely (that there will be more dead people found) when you look
at the mass of metal that is there. The firefighters have done a great
job, but unfortunately when they get the heavy machinery to lift the
carriages it is probable we will find more victims.”
“Here at ground zero, when you look at this mass of twisted iron, you
see the violence of the impact," Moreno said.
Moreno said that authorities are also searching the area near the
accident for possible bodies.
“The impact was so incredibly violent that we have found bodies hundreds
of meters away, which means that people were thrown through the
windows," Moreno said.
Various Spaniards who had loved ones traveling on the trains posted
messages on social media saying they were unaccounted for and pleading
for any information.
Spain’s Civil Guard opened an office in Cordoba, the nearest city to the
crash, for family members of the missing to seek help and leave DNA
samples to be used to possibly identify bodies.
Video and photos showed twisted train cars lying on their sides under
floodlights late on Sunday. Passengers reported climbing out of smashed
windows, with some using emergency hammers to break the windows,
according to Salvador Jiménez, a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE,
who was on board one of the derailed trains.
He told the network by phone Sunday that “there was a moment when it
felt like an earthquake and the train had indeed derailed.”
Authorities said 159 people were injured. As of Monday, that included 11
adults and one child in critical condition.
The collision took place near Adamuz, a town in the province of Cordoba,
about 370 kilometers (about 230 miles) south of Madrid.
A sports center was turned into a makeshift hospital in Adamuz and the
Spanish Red Cross set up a help center offering assistance to emergency
services and people seeking information. Members of the Civil Guard and
civil defense worked on site throughout the night.
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In this grab taken from video provided by Guardia Civil, rescue
workers at the scene after a high speed train collision,in Adamuz,
Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (Guardia Civil via AP)
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez expressed his condolences to
the victims’ families. “Tonight is a night of deep pain for our
country,” he wrote on X.
The prime minister will visit the accident site on Monday, according
to his office.
Officials call accident ‘strange’
Transport Minister Puente early Monday said the cause of the crash
was unknown.
He called it “a truly strange” incident because it happened on a
flat stretch of track that had been renovated in May. He also said
the train that jumped the track was less than 4 years old. That
train belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train,
which took the brunt of the impact, was part of Spain’s public train
company, Renfe.
According to Puente, the back part of the first train derailed and
crashed into the head of the other train. When asked by reporters
how long an inquiry into the crash’s cause could take, he said it
could be a month.
Álvaro Fernández, the president of Renfe, told Spanish public radio
RNE that both trains were well under the speed limit of 250 kph; he
said one was going 205 kph, the other 210 kph. He also said that
“human error could be ruled out.”
The incident “must be related to the moving equipment of Iryo or the
infrastructure” the Renfe president said.
Iryo issued a statement on Monday saying that its train was
manufactured in 2022 and passed its latest safety check on Jan. 15.
It reiterated its condolences for the victims and said it would
completely cooperate with the official investigation into the causes
of the tragedy.
Train services Monday between Madrid and cities in Andalusia were
canceled.
Spain leads Europe in high-speed trains
Spain has spent decades investing heavily in high-speed trains and
currently has the largest rail network in Europe for trains moving
over 250 kph (155 mph), with more than 3,100 kilometers (1,900
miles) of track, according to the European Union.
The network is a popular, competitively priced and safe mode of
transport. Renfe said more than 25 million passengers took one of
its high-speed trains in 2024.
Sunday's accident was the first with deaths since Spain's high-speed
rail network opened its first line in 1992.
Spain’s worst train accident this century occurred in 2013, when 80
people died after a train derailed in the country’s northwest. An
investigation concluded the train was traveling 179 kph (111 mph) on
a stretch with an 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit when it left the
tracks. That stretch of track was not high speed.
___
Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain, and Naishadham from Madrid.
AP journalist Barry Hatton contributed from Lisbon, Portugal.
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