{"id":379107,"date":"2026-01-19T21:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/379107\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T21:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:51:07","slug":"we-had-to-remove-the-dead-to-get-to-the-living-train-crash-shocks-spanish-town-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/379107\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We had to remove the dead to get to the living\u2019: train crash shocks Spanish town | Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just after 2.45pm on Monday, a huge yellow-and-green crane lorry swung off the main road that cuts through the forested hills of eastern Andaluc\u00eda and beetled down a track to begin picking up the enormous, wrecked pieces of Spain\u2019s worst rail disaster in more than a decade<\/a>. Behind it rolled a support lorry and a convoy of police cars.<\/p>\n

A few minutes\u2019 drive away, between groves of olive and oak trees, lay the two stricken trains that had smashed into each other on Sunday night, killing at least 39 people and critically injuring at least 12 others. As investigators and Guardia Civil officers walked up and down the line by the twisted carriages, the nearby town of Adamuz was in the early stages of trying to process what had happened a few kilometres from its outskirts.<\/p>\n

What the prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, had called \u201ca night of deep pain for our country\u201d had given way to a day of shock and bewilderment in this municipality of 4,000 inhabitants in Andaluc\u00eda\u2019s C\u00f3rdoba province.<\/p>\n

Part of a wrecked train at the crash site. Spain\u2019s prime minister called it \u2018a night of deep pain for our country\u2019. Photograph: Manu Fern\u00e1ndez\/AP<\/p>\n

Adamuz\u2019s municipal events hall, which had been turned into an emergency response centre to which the injured passengers were ferried, told its own tale. A dozen trestle tables were neatly stacked with hundreds of blankets brought by local people. Inside and outside the hall, Guardia Civil officers mixed with local police, civil emergency workers \u2013 and dozens of journalists.<\/p>\n

One ashen-faced officer was not sure how to sum up the events of the past few hours. \u201cIt was what it was,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it was bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Map showing the location of the crash<\/a><\/p>\n

Others described the crash site in terms as eloquent as they were horrific. \u201cThere were moments when we had to remove the dead to get to the living,\u201d Francisco Carmona, C\u00f3rdoba\u2019s firefighting chief, told Onda Cero radio.<\/p>\n

Rafael Moreno, the mayor of Adamuz, said he would never forget what he had seen on the track: \u201cPeople asking and begging for help. Those leaving the wreckage. Images that will always stay in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the enormity of what had happened, the one thing everyone could agree on was that the people of Adamuz had done all they could to help those who had been onboard the high-speed Iryo train travelling from M\u00e1laga to Madrid and the Renfe train from Madrid to Huelva. Some had rushed down to the tracks to help, while others had grabbed what they could and headed down to the municipal hall.<\/p>\n

\"AftermathAftermath of high-speed train crash in southern Spain \u2013 video<\/p>\n

A local woman called Carme said she knew something was very wrong when she heard the sirens and saw ambulances tearing through the town. Before long, local WhatsApp groups were sharing news of the diaster. \u201cIt was very scary and it was a really painful night,\u201d she said. \u201cI tried to help by sending my 17-year-old son down to the hall with some blankets and a dressing gown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Mendoza, a 75-year-old \u201cborn and bred\u201d in Adamuz, said he and his neighbours had never lived through anything remotely comparable with Sunday night. Standing on the pavement near the municipal hall, he said people were still struggling to accept what he called \u201can awful tragedy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bad, bad, bad night,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the whole town pitched in and rallied round even though this was the first time that anything like this has ever happened round here. People came with food and blankets because it was cold and everyone did what they could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local people donated blankets, which were piled up in the municipal hall, for the crash victims. Photograph: Sergio R Moreno\/GTRES\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

As the crane lorry got to work, the helicopter that had been circling the hills rattled out of sight and Adamuz\u2019s large, draughty hall began to empty, thoughts \u2013 and action \u2013 turned to the causes of the crash and to the process of identifying its victims. The Guardia Civil opened five offices \u2013 in C\u00f3rdoba, M\u00e1laga, Sevilla, Huelva and Madrid \u2013 where relatives of the missing could seek information and leave DNA samples.<\/p>\n

On a street in Adamuz, Benjam\u00edn Pe\u00f1as, a 50-year-old builder, took a break from a refit to reflect on the terrible events of the past 20 hours. \u201cWe all did what we could,\u201d he said. \u201cSome people tried to get down to the crash site but pretty soon it had all been cordoned off by the emergency services. So we all took what we could down to the hall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez (right), visiting Adamuz after the disaster on Monday. Photograph: Sergio R Moreno\/GTRES\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1as himself was up until 1.30am ferrying blankets, water and medical supplies down to the hall. \u201cSome of the people I saw there were too deep in shock to be able to take in what had happened; it just hadn\u2019t sunk in,\u201d he said. \u201cBut others were bruised and bleeding. It is terrible to see your town make news around the world because of something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just after 2.45pm on Monday, a huge yellow-and-green crane lorry swung off the main road that cuts through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-379107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}