Urda: The tiny Spanish town that rushed to help after train crash killed at least 68

Residents in the normally quiet Spanish town of Urda moved quickly to assist after learning of a fatal collision on a railway line just a few kilometres away on Wednesday.

A 78-year-old local pharmacist said he was among the very first people at the scene, driving straight to help at the disaster involving two high-speed trains after his daughter first alerted him to the crash.

Antonio Garcia said that as he approached, the scale of the accident that has so far left at least 68 people dead became clear, ⁠with one carriage wedged inside another ​and ⁠scores of bodies.

"Just imagine what was inside," said Garcia, who brought first aid materials, painkillers and tranquillisers from his pharmacy as well as blankets to ⁠help treat the injured.

Map of Urda:

Garcia described how one passenger who had lost an ​arm ⁠in the crash was calmly asking ‌for an ambulance, while another was saying his final goodbyes to his family.

"His last words were 'God is good'. For those of us who are believers, these ‌are very beautiful words," said Garcia.

Other locals brought ‌bottles of water to give to passengers who were evacuated from the two trains.

A few hours later, Urda was brimming with police, firefighters and emergency workers from across the region and its local ⁠sports hall was converted into a centre for survivors.

The local primary school was reserved for relatives of the victims, where a volunteer psychologist from Madrid called Carmen said she had been helping out since the morning.

"There were many mothers who found out their children had been killed. That was the worst of today. Telling a mother that her child has died in a train crash is ‌devastating," she said.

Some relatives made the two-hour trip from the ​Spanish capital Madrid to search for family members.

A woman who gave her ‌name as Ana said she had ⁠travelled to Urda after a call from environmental police who had ⁠found their dog, Trece, who was on board a train with her husband Pepe.

Ana fought back tears ‌as she described searching ​for her husband at the crash site, ‌Urda's sports hall and the primary school, ​adding that his name was not on any list.

Spain in mourning

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said "all of Spain" was in mourning after the collision, which the transport minister said happened after a Renfe service was authorised ⁠to proceed despite an active red signal due to a stationary train ahead.

Oscar Puente told reporters in Madrid that the red signal was issued due to a computer communications failure, which automatically stopped traffic, but an erroneous decision was then taken to restart the Renfe train.

Sanchez said in a televised address from near the site south of Madrid that the "terrible tragedy" would be investigated and vowed to address any failures that came to light, adding that the causes of the two crashes appeared to be unrelated.

"If we need to further strengthen safety in order to rebuild confidence in our high-speed rail system, we will do so, because what is unacceptable for ⁠a country like Spain is to suffer two high-speed rail accidents in the same year," Sanchez said.

Spain's opposition ​People's ⁠Party said it had cancelled all campaign events for the day, ahead of elections next month.

At the scene in rural Castilla-La Mancha, ambulances, funeral home vans and helicopters assembled beside one of the trains on an elevated stretch of track, while twisted metal and wreckage lay scattered down an embankment where at least three carriages had ⁠plunged.

The head of the regional government, Emiliano García-Page, said the death toll had risen to 68, while rescuers searching for other victims as darkness fell did not know if ​other fatalities would be discovered ⁠once the carriages were moved.

Passengers, some splattered with blood or bandaged, ‌were evacuated along a nearby road after the crash, which Spain's health minister, Monica Garcia, said had injured 80 people, 15 of them very seriously.

The disaster, the deadliest train accident in Europe since a 2013 derailment in Spain's Santiago de Compostela ‌in which 80 people died, follows another fatal accident in January involving high-speed trains operated by the same companies on the same line, in which 46 people died.

In that collision, a train derailed and smashed into an oncoming train, prompting a debate over investment in railway maintenance.

Renfe said on Wednesday that after being authorised to continue its journey, its train had crashed into the Iryo train that had remained stationary "for reasons we don't know".

"The Renfe train continued on its way as instructed, and a collision ⁠occurred. The exact sequence of events, the traffic conditions and the circumstances of the impact will have to be established by the investigation," Renfe said in a statement.

Iryo, which said it had activated emergency protocols, and state-owned infrastructure operator Adif did not respond to requests for comment.

A n analysis of data from the Spanish competition authority showed some 25 million passengers used a high-speed train in Spain in the first half of 2026, a drop of around 14% compared with the same period last year.

Meanwhile, European Commission data ‌shows Spain's maintenance investment in its roughly 4,000 km (2,485 miles) ​of high-speed lines has lagged other large European countries.

Although Spain spent an average of about €1.5 billion ‌a year on its high-speed network between 2018 and 2022, more than any other European ​country, most of that money went toward new construction. Only about 16% was earmarked for maintenance, renewals and upgrades.