A day after a horrific train crash in Spain killed at least 69 people, emergency workers and canine units looked for survivors and victims; a prime minister facing elections and fresh accusations about his government’s competency set up camp near the crash site; and victims’ identities began to emerge.
More than 50 people were still in hospitals, officials said, with 15 in critical condition.
Investigators focused on the role of train traffic controllers in Madrid in allowing, or even causing, one high-speed train to rear-end another that was stopped on the same tracks after an automatic safety system went down.
In a time of concern that humans could be losing control over technology, the crash prompted questions in Spain about a lack of technological safeguards against human error. Those doubts were especially troubling in a country suffering its second train disaster in a year. Spain’s vast rail system — once a point of pride, and an attraction to a growing number of tourists, foreigners and boosters of Spanish growth — has become a source of anxiety.
“I want to reassure all citizens that the entire central government and all the institutions of the state are working day and night, not only to respond to the needs of the victims’ families, but also to establish every last detail of what caused this tragedy and to strengthen safety measures so that something like this never happens again,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Thursday in the town of Urda, near the crash site.
But some critics began to argue that Mr. Sánchez should examine his own government, since the accidents, and the apparent erosion of the rail system, occurred during his eight years in power.
“The government cannot talk about human error after what it has done regarding maintenance and safety,” Isabel Pardo de Vera, a former president of Adif, the country’s state-owned railway infrastructure manager, which oversees the train traffic control operators, told the conservative newspaper El Mundo on Thursday.
As Spain’s king and queen announced that they would visit the wounded in Toledo, near the crash, officials offered updates about the search.
Throughout the night, technicians discovered more remains and were in the process of identifying the dead, Emiliano García-Page, the president of the Castilla-La Mancha region, said in Urda on Thursday.
“We do not believe there are any more bodies trapped underneath, but I always say that with caution,” Mr. García-Page said. “We are reasonably optimistic that the hospitalized patients will continue to improve. Their conditions are progressing more favorably than we expected last night.”
Details about the victims also began to emerge. Among the dead were Japanese and South Korean nationals, traveling on a line popular with tourists traveling from Madrid, the capital, to the historic city of Seville. The conductor of the rear train, Antonio Acedo, who was told by traffic controllers to continue his train’s journey, also died in the crash, according to the political party to which he belonged.
While the government urged a time of mourning, the political enemies of Mr. Sánchez didn’t waste a minute to react, with national elections looming on Nov. 29.
“We will not accept a period of mourning that silences us while Spaniards are dying,” Santiago Abascal, the leader of the far-right party Vox, said at a rally on Wednesday evening in Valladolid, outside Madrid. Valladolid is the hometown of Óscar Puente, the government’s transportation minister, whose job appears to be in jeopardy. Mr. Abascal has taken to calling him the “minister of death.”
Mr. Puente fell into the political cross hairs within hours of the crash, when the first question put to him in a news conference was whether he would quit. (He said he wasn’t thinking about himself at the moment.)
But criticism from the left and the right has only ratcheted up since then, as Mr. Puente, known as the government’s social-media-addicted attack dog, has overseen two historic rail disasters linked to infrastructure. It didn’t help that he recently danced on a talk show set featuring straphangers on a bumpy ride. During that appearance, he made a humorous reference to delays caused by system failures on Renfe, the national railway, which operated the train that rear-ended the other one on Wednesday.
Even people in the southern region of Andalusia whose economic survival depends on visitors brought from Madrid by the fast-train line seemed resigned to a new reality.
“The Madrid–Andalusia high-speed train,” said Juanma Moreno, Andalusia’s regional president from the opposition conservative party, “is no longer a safe means of transport.”
The political contretemps and national soul-searching took place against the more urgent search for survivors. Relatives of missing people took to social media to appeal for help in finding loved ones, including the carriage numbers they rode in, the clothes they were wearing.
“My sister Adriana was on the Renfe Madrid-Seville train, carriage 8,” one woman wrote. “We can’t find her.”
Carlos Barragán contributed reporting.
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