Spanish authorities identify all 69 victims of train crash, including 2 Japanese nationals

• Spanish authorities identified all 69 victims of the high-speed train crash, including 15 foreigners. The last three were two Australians and one Japanese citizen, after a painful wait for families.
• The Nov 28 disaster was one of Europe’s deadliest rail accidents this century. Victims came from Spain, the US, Australia, Japan and several other countries.
• The crash raised fresh safety questions after a Renfe train hit a stationary Iryo train near Urda. An automatic safety system failed, and a control centre let the Renfe train continue.

MADRID – The Spanish authorities said on Nov 2 that they had identified all 69 people killed in last week’s high-speed train collision after confirming the identities of three more victims.

The Oct 28 disaster – one of Europe’s deadliest rail accidents this century – has seen victims’ relatives endure an agonising wait as forensic teams identify the dead, sometimes from individual body parts.

A legal body set up to handle the identification work, made up of police and forensic experts, said in a statement late on Nov 2 that the three latest confirmed victims were two Australians and a Japanese citizen.

The victims include 54 Spanish nationals and 15 foreigners – four US citizens, two Australians, two Japanese and one each from Argentina, Canada, France, Mexico, Portugal, Tunisia and the Czech Republic.

The accident was Spain’s second high-speed train collision in 2026 and raised fresh questions about the country’s rail safety, after a crash in the southern region of Andalusia in January killed 46 people.

The latest disaster struck when a service by state operator Renfe ploughed into the back of a stationary train belonging to Spanish company Iryo outside the central village of Urda, around 130km south of Madrid.

The failure of an automatic safety system halted all trains on a 63km stretch of track, but a control centre authorised the Renfe service to resume its journey while the other train was still.

The tragedy came one month before a Nov 29 general election in which Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez will seek to overcome unfavourable polls and extend his eight-year premiership. AFP