39 perish in Spain crash

ADAMUZ, Jan 19 (Reuters): At least 39 people died in southern Spain after a high-speed train derailed and collided with an oncoming one on Sunday night in the worst railway accident in the country since 2013.

The accident happened at 7:45 p.m. (1845 GMT) near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba, about 360 km (223 miles) south of the capital Madrid. It left 122 people injured, with 48 still in hospital and 12 in intensive care, according to emergency services.

"The train tipped to one side... then everything went dark, and all I heard was screams," said Ana, a young woman who was travelling back to Madrid and was being treated at a Red Cross centre in Adamuz.

Limping and wrapped in a blanket, her face covered with plasters, she described how she was dragged out of the train covered in blood through a window by other passengers who had escaped. Firefighters rescued her sister from the wreckage and an ambulance took them both to hospital.

"There were people who were fine and others who were very, very badly injured. You had them right in front of you and you knew they were going to die, and you couldn't do anything," she said.

The rescue operation was complicated by the remote location of the crash, which could only be accessed by a single-track road, making it difficult for ambulances to enter and exit, Iñigo Vila, national emergency director at the Spanish Red Cross, told Reuters.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Transport Minister Oscar Puente were among those making their way to the crash site on Monday morning. "The death toll has risen to 39 and is not yet definitive," Puente said on X.

There were around 400 passengers on the two trains, operated by Iryo and Alvia, according to a statement from state-owned rail operator Renfe. The Iryo train was en route from Malaga to Madrid, while the second train was heading towards Huelva.

It was too early to talk about the cause, but it happened in "strange conditions", Renfe President Álvaro Fernandez Heredia said on local radio station Cadena Ser, adding that "human error is practically ruled out."

The Alvia train coming in the opposite direction at 200 km per hour either collided with the final two carriages of the Iryo train that derailed or with debris on the line, Heredia said. The Iryo train was travelling at 110 km per hour, he said, adding that it had lost a wheel that has not yet been located.