A commuter train derailed on Tuesday after a containment wall fell on the track due to heavy rain near the city of Barcelona, killing the driver and injuring around 20 people, a source at the Catalonia regional government and several local media outlets said.
The accident occurred just two days after a high-speed train collision and derailment near Adamuz in Spain’s southern Córdoba province that killed 42 people.
In the latest disaster on Spain’s railways, 20 ambulances were dispatched to Gelida on the outskirts of Barcelona with 38 firefighter units on Tuesday.
The suburban train derailment occurred in a region long plagued by underfunded rail services and frequent incidents.
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In a separate incident on Tuesday night, traffic between Blanes and Maçanet-Massanes south of the city of Girona – also part of the Barcelona commuter rail network – was interrupted “due to a train axle coming off the track”, Spanish rail operator Adif said in a statement.
[ Spanish train operator orders speed limit on Madrid-Barcelona line following fatal crash ]
On Sunday evening two packed high-speed trains collided in one of the worst accidents in the country in more than a decade.
The incident near Córdoba occurred when the tail-end of a train travelling from Málaga to Madrid derailed and smashed sideways into an oncoming train on a parallel track.
Several carriages of the Madrid-bound train derailed at about 7.45pm local time and the force of their impact on the second train pushed some of its carriages down a four-metre slope. – Agencies
