At least 39 people have died and dozens more have been injured after two high-speed trains collided in the province of Cordoba, in southern Spain, according to authorities, but the death toll could rise. It is the worst rail accident in the country in more than a decade.

An Iryo company train carrying about 300 people from Malaga to Madrid derailed its last three carriages and invaded the adjacent track, colliding with another train covering the Madrid-Huelva line, which also derailed with 184 passengers on board.

The force of the collision forced carriages of this second train to plunge down a four-meter slope, which was hindering rescue efforts.

Emergency services have treated 112 people, with 48, including five children, still hospitalized. Of these, 11 adults and one child are in intensive care.

Numerous rescuers traveled to the scene of the accident to rescue trapped passengers and attend to the injured, several of whom remain in serious condition.

Rescue teams said the twisted wreckage of the trains made it difficult to rescue people trapped inside the carriages.

The Cordoba fire chief, Francisco Carmona, told the Spanish public broadcaster RTVE: “We had to remove a dead body to reach someone alive. It's a tough and delicate job.”

More than 200 officers are working on rescue operations at the accident site, the Civil Guard reported.

The task of identifying the victims is still ongoing.

“Extremely strange”

The causes of the accident, which occurred in the municipality of Adamuz at 7:39 p.m. local time, are still unknown.

In a press conference, Spain's Transport Minister, Oscar Puente, described the train accident as "extremely strange" and said it occurred "for reasons unknown to us."

He added that the incident occurred "on a straight stretch" and that the Iryo train is "relatively new" and the track where the collision occurred is "completely renovated".

For his part, the president of the state-owned railway company Renfe, Alvaro Fernandez Heredia, ruled out that it was due to human error because the system corrects erroneous decisions, and pointed to "some issue with the rolling stock of Iryo or the infrastructure."

In statements to the SER network, Fernandez Heredia explained that "apparently the time interval between one train and another that crossed in opposite directions was 20 seconds."

I indicated that, although there is a safety system that "when an obstacle is on the track, the groove is blocked and prevents circulation and orders the emergency braking of the train", the time elapsed made it impossible for the mechanism to act.

The Renfe official stated that the causes of the accident will take days to be known and that "the worst thing we can do now is speculate."

The Railway Accident Investigation Commission, CIAF, is in charge of the investigations, collecting all the information from the railway operators and companies.

According to Adif, the company in charge of railway management in Spain, spaces were set up for the families of the victims in the stations of Madrid, Seville, Cordoba, Malaga and Huelva.

This is the most serious train accident in Spain since the one that took place in Santiago de Compostela in 2013, in which 79 people died.

King Felipe VI of Spain and Queen Letizia, who are in Athens for the funeral of Princess Irene of Greece, announced that they will interrupt their visit after learning of the tragedy.

In a brief conversation with the media, the king expressed that they would return to Spain as soon as possible.

“I understand the desperation of the families and the number of people injured in this accident, and we are all truly worried. We hope they recover as soon as possible.”

For her part, Queen Letizia added that her priority was to be by the side of those affected by "this brutal accident".

The Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, cancelled his schedule to travel to the site of the accident, where he is now.

Earlier, Sanchez said in a message on X that his government “is working with the other competent authorities and emergency services to assist the passengers.”

“Tonight is a night of profound sorrow for our country due to the tragic train accident in Adamuz. I want to express my deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims.”

“No words can alleviate such great suffering, but I want you to know that the whole country is with you in this very difficult moment,” the president said.

“Like an earthquake”

Following the accident, high-speed train service between Madrid and Andalusia was suspended.

Salvador Jimenez, a journalist from the public broadcaster RTVE who was traveling on one of the trains, commented that the impact felt like an "earthquake".

“I was in the first car. There was a moment when I felt like there was an earthquake and, sure enough, the train derailed,” Jimenez said.

In his last update on X, he commented that he was among a group of passengers waiting in the "freezing night" for buses that would take them to a local sports center.

Another passenger, Lucas Meriako, described the experience as a “horror movie”.

“We were in car five and we started to feel some knocks on the track, nothing unusual, but suddenly the knocks got worse,” he told the news program La Sexta Noticias.

“Another train passed us and everything started vibrating much more, there was a jolt behind us and the feeling that the whole train was going to fall apart,” he described.

Meriako added that the impact of the crash broke the train windows, displaced the suitcases which fell on top of the passengers, and the sounds of the injured began to be heard.

That's when people started to move, now aware of the situation, and broke the windows to get out.

Authorities say an investigation has been launched but do not expect to establish exactly what happened for at least a month.

With almost 4,000 kilometers of tracks in operation, Spain has the most extensive high-speed rail network in Europe and the second largest in the world, only behind China.