'The crew had to smash the windows with hammers to get people out'

A complicated and worrying night following the serious accident that occurred on the AVE Madrid to Malaga line. According to the story of Salvador Jiménez, who was travelling on the train, the passengers had just been served dinner when the collision occurred. In statements to media, he said: “The sensation felt like an earthquake. The trays and glasses flew away.”

He said that he was on the first carriage in which no one appeared to have been injured, but he also indicated that the collision had completely flipped the last carriage. He said that the passengers had waited for instructions so they could exit the carriage in a most orderly fashion, while crews of other carriages were “breaking windows with hammers to let the passengers out.”

He noted that the loudspeaker had been used to request the assistance of medical staff to treat the injured after the collision. In the midst of the uncertainty, Jiménez regretted that there were hundreds of people at the stop who, like him, were waiting for instructions, asking every emergency services officer or staff member they met to find out where to go.

In statements to TVE, he stated that “they are going to take [us] to a municipal refuge so that we can spend the night there.” He was surprised that the company, despite the fact that “everything is computerised”, had not sent out a message telling those who were affected what to do.

On the social network X, some passengers also described their experience of the accident. Carmen, a user, said that she was in carriage 5 and that ten minutes after leaving Cordoba, “it began to shake and derailed”, and then the power went off.

She stated that the passengers in her carriage, at least based on the appearance, were all in good health. It was only after she had left the station that she realized what happened. She posted pictures of the overturned cars on a social media platform. She said, “This is much worse than what we saw from our car.”

After 9.20pm the passenger reported that volunteers arrived to transport those affected from the region to Adamuz town, where the accident occurred. The passenger reported that at 11pm they were already taking passengers to the village on buses.

The emergency services are in the area to assist the injured, which number over 100. According to the chief of the Cordoba consortium fire brigade, who spoke on public TV, there are still many people trapped, and the rescue is “very difficult” because of the condition of the carriages. He described them as “wreckage”.

Many friends and relatives of passengers travelling on the crash trains have reached out to the networks for assistance in order to reach their loved ones, as they don’t have any information about them. One of them said to this newspaper: “We are desperate. They are not answering their phone.” Adif’s telephone number 900101020 is available to assist the affected families.