Report finds Spanish rails were broken before high-speed rail disaster

Preliminary reports have found that a high-speed train derailed “before passing”, causing a straight section of track to break, leading to Sunday’s rail disaster that killed 45 people.

Last Sunday, a train operated by private company Iryo derailed and its rear carriage crossed the opposite track and entered the path of an oncoming train operated by state-owned Renfe.

The CIAF Railway Investigation Committee stated that not only were there “notches” in the wheels of the front carriages left on the track by the “Incoming Two” train, but there were also “notches” in the three earlier trains that had previously passed the track.

A gap of nearly 40 centimeters (15 inches) in the track has become the focus of the accident investigation.

Sunday’s fatal collision occurred at around 19:45 local time (18:45 GMT), around an hour after the Iryo train left Malaga for Madrid.

The last three carriages of the train (six to eight carriages) derailed and collided with the Renfe train bound for Huelva. A preliminary report found that “six carriages derailed due to a complete lack of continuity on the track.”

Most of the dead and injured were in the front carriage of the state train.

Earlier this week, Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente confirmed reports that dents were found in the wheels of the Iryo train’s carriages, which had safely passed the tracks.

“These notches in the wheels and the deformation observed on the track are consistent with the fact that the track has cracked,” the CIAF preliminary report said.

It added that three trains passing the track on Sunday at 17:21, 19:01 and 19:09 all had similar notches “with compatible geometric patterns”.

The report stated that similar grooves were found on the No. 2, 3 and 4 cars of the “Enter 2” train, but the last car, No. 5, which did not derail, had a groove on the outer edge, indicating that the track had tilted outward before the No. 6 car derailed.

CIAF called its report a “working hypothesis,” adding that it “must be confirmed by subsequent detailed calculations and analysis.”

Appearing before reporters again on Friday, the transport minister said it was too early to give a clear answer but that if the cause of the accident was a fracture, it occurred in the minutes and hours before the derailment and went undetected.

The Adamuzi disaster was the country’s worst rail accident in more than a decade.

In 2013, Galicia in northwest Spain suffered the most serious high-speed rail derailment, killing 80 people and injuring 140 others.