At Least 30 Killed In Train Accident In Spain
Posted July 3, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
At least 30 people are dead and more than a dozen injured after a subway train derailment in Spain Monday.
The apparent accident happened in the eastern city of Valencia. Authorities say one compartment of the train went off the tracks as it was leaving a downtown station, which caused the carriage to overturn.
Authorities are still investigating the cause, but it’s believed a tunnel wall collapsing on the train was what triggered the derailment.
The fatal accident happened as thousands of people began travelling to the city for the World Meeting of Families. Pope Benedict is to attend the event Saturday and Sunday.
More than 60 million people used the Valencia subway system in 2005 and the network averages about 165,000 riders a day.
This is the third train accident in Spain over the past few years. In January 2005, some 20 people suffered minor injuries when a train bumped into an empty train at Madrid’s Atocha station.
Three years ago, 19 people were killed and nearly 50 others were seriously hurt when a passenger train crashed head-on with a freight train in Chinchilla.
