Medina and Maia had been in the seventh carriage of the state-operated Renfe train that smashed into the back of a train run by the private Iryo company on the same line from the capital to the south of Spain<\/a>. Had they been any further forward, they could well have been among the accident\u2019s fatalities.<\/p>\n As it was, the couple climbed out of the train and helped the injured while they waited for medics and Guardia Civil officers to arrive at the scene of the crash, which took place amid vineyards and olive groves near the small town of Urda in the central region of Castilla-La Mancha, near the city of Toledo.<\/p>\n Within hours of the crash, Urda had been transformed into a frantic emergency response centre, with a local sports centre pressed into service as a triage post for the walking wounded. Cars, vans and trucks from the emergency services in Castilla-La Mancha and neighbouring Madrid crowded the streets.<\/p>\n A member of the Spanish Red Cross embraces a woman as they wait for news of passengers on the two high-speed trains that collided near Urda. Photograph: Susana Vera\/Reuters<\/p>\n Fredrich and Arabella Barilea, a couple from the Philippines who now live in Dubai, were on the Iryo train, and Fredrich was sent flying by the impact.<\/p>\n \u201cOne guy was shouting: \u2018Get out! Get out! Another train could hit!\u201d said Fredrich. \u201cWe saw all the people were also getting off. Many of them had head injuries and were covered in blood. We just got as far away from the train as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, buses arrived to ferry the lightly injured survivors to Urda \u2013 although the Barileas said they were too shocked and confused to know where exactly they had been brought.<\/p>\n \u201cIt all happened in a split second,\u201d said Arabella. \u201cThe table we were sitting at just disappeared in the crash. I feel like we\u2019re on our second life. You never know what could happen. We\u2019re very grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n Frederich and Arabella Barilea, originally from the Philippines but currently living in Dubai, were passengers on the Iryo train that the fast train from Madrid hit from behind. Photograph: Sam Jones<\/p>\n Around the couple, people queued patiently on the street as they waited to board coaches. Wearing torn and bloodstained clothes and, in some cases, bandages on their heads, they stared, mute and uncomprehending. Spain may have been in mourning, as the prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, said during his visit to Urda, but many of those fortunate enough to survive Spain\u2019s second major rail crash in less than a year were still too deep in shock to begin grieving.<\/p>\n Ata Yelkaya, a young tourist from Turkey, usually takes the bus when he travels around Spain. On Wednesday, however, he had decided to try the Iryo. Sleepy and assuming his train had come to a halt at a station, he had switched off his tablet and pulled up his hood in preparation for a nap. At 8.53am, he felt what he would later learn was the impact of the Renfe train smashing into the carriages behind him.<\/p>\n \u201cI woke up with a bump and hit my head on the seat in front of me,\u201d he said, \u201cI looked across at an elderly couple near me and saw that the woman had a cut in her eyebrow. That\u2019s when I knew something serious had happened.\u201d<\/p>\n When he looked out of the window, he saw the carriages behind his \u2013 carriage No 5 \u2013 had come off the track and that many people had been killed or injured.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone was in shock but I tried to help other people get off the train,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m from Turkey and I lived through the 2023 earthquake there, so I stayed calm and tried to think about what to do and how to get out. It was only when I got out and saw some of the dead people that it hit me. I think everyone was in shock; too shocked even to panic or to scream.\u201d<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s disaster stirs memories of the Adamuz rail crash in January<\/a>, in which 46 people died. Once again, a small town has found itself at the centre of a national disaster and, once again, local people have rallied to help, bringing food and water to a hall that had been set up as a centre for those searching for their relatives.<\/p>\n Medical staff converted a nearby sports centres into a temporary medical facility. Photograph: Andrea Comas\/AP<\/p>\n But, as also happened at Adamuz, the solidarity and kindness on display is likely to turn to anger over the coming hours as people seek answers as to how one of Europe\u2019s most modern and extensive high-speed rail networks could experience two deadly collisions that have between them claimed at least 114 lives in the space of just 10 months. With a snap general election<\/a> just a month away, many voters could use their votes to register their fury over another rail disaster. The \u201cinexplicable circumstances\u201d that led to the crash \u2013 as Spain\u2019s transport minister has called them \u2013 will need to be explained as swiftly and thoroughly as possible.<\/p>\n For all the rush to action and unity on display, there was also a sickening sense of deja vu. One woman from Urda, who had spent the morning driving people to town from the crash site, had few words to describe what she had seen and heard.<\/p>\n \u201cMejor no verlo,\u201d she said \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s better not to see something like this\u201d. Again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josimar Medina woke a little before 9am on Wednesday to find himself airborne and hurtling through his carriage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-817231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817231","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=817231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Spain](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/3845.jpg\")
Spain in mourning after fatal rail crash, says Spanish prime minister – video<\/p>\n