The derailment of a high-speed train leaves at least 39 dead and dozens injured in Spain, according to police

Spanish police said Monday that at least 39 people have been confirmed dead in a high-speed train collision the night before in the south of the country, as efforts continue to recover the bodies and authorities expect the death toll to rise.

Some passengers were catapulted out of windows and their bodies were found hundreds of meters from the crash site, Andalusia regional president Juanma Moreno said.

The accident occurred on Sunday at 7:45 p.m. when the tail of a train carrying around 300 passengers derailed on the way from Malaga to the capital, Madrid. It crashed into a train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another city in southern Spain, according to rail operator Adif.

The head of the second train, which was carrying about 200 passengers, was the most affected by the impact, said Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente. That collision caused its first two cars to leave the track and send them tumbling down a 13-foot slope. Puente said it appeared that the greatest number of deaths occurred in those cars.

Moreno said Monday morning that emergency services were still searching for what he described as a mass of twisted metal where the mangled carriages had derailed.

“It’s likely (that more dead people will be found) if you look at the mass of metal that is there. The firefighters have done a great job, but unfortunately when they get the heavy machinery to lift the cars it is likely that we will find more victims.”

“Here at ground zero, when you look at this mass of twisted iron, you see the violence of the impact.”

Videos and photographs showed twisted train cars lying on their sides under the spotlights. Passengers reported climbing out of broken windows and some used emergency hammers to break the windows, according to Salvador Jiménez, a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE, who was aboard one of the derailed trains.

He told the network by phone on Sunday that “there was a moment where it felt like an earthquake and the train had effectively derailed.”

Spanish police said 159 people were injured, of whom five were in critical condition. Another 24 were in serious condition, authorities said.

The collision took place near Adamuz, a town in the province of Córdoba, about 370 kilometers south of Madrid.

In Adamuz, a sports center was converted into a makeshift hospital and the Spanish Red Cross set up a help center offering assistance to emergency services and people seeking information. Members of the Civil Guard and Civil Defense of Spain worked at the scene throughout the night.

Puente said early Monday that the cause of the accident was unknown.

He called it a “really strange” incident because it occurred on a flat stretch of track that had been renovated in May. He also said the train that went off the track was less than 4 years old. That train belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train, which suffered most of the impact, was part of the Spanish public train company Renfe.

When asked by reporters how long an investigation into the cause of the crash could take, he said it could be a month.

Spain has Europe’s largest high-speed rail network for trains moving faster than 155 mph, with more than 1,900 miles of track, according to the European Union.

The network is a popular, safe and competitively priced mode of transportation. Renfe said more than 25 million passengers will travel on one of its high-speed trains in 2024.

Train services between Madrid and cities in Andalusia were canceled for Monday.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain said Sunday that they were “following with great concern the serious accident between two high-speed trains in Adamuz.”

“We express our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the deceased, as well as our love and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured,” the royal palace said in X.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X that she was following “the terrible news” from Córdoba.

“Tonight you are in my thoughts,” he wrote in Spanish.

The worst train accident in Spain this century occurred in 2013 when 80 people died after a train derailed in the northwest of the country. An investigation concluded that the train was traveling at 111 mph on a stretch with a 50 mph speed limit when it left the tracks.