Name: Spanish transportation minister calls train crash 'extremely weird': What happened? | DW News
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Spain's Interior Ministry says at least 39 people have been killed and dozens more injured after the collision of two high speed trains.

The accident happened overnight in the southern region of Andalusia.

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The trains were carrying around 500 people and many were trapped inside the wreckage.

The cause of the accident remains unknown.

The wreckage of Sunday's crash lies strewn across the tracks as the death toll from the country's worst rail disaster in over a decade climbs.

A gruelling rescue operation continued throughout the night after the high speed train derailed, colliding with an oncoming service.

What happened was that the long distance train derailed the Irio 6189 train which was traveling between Malaga and Puerto de Atoche.

It landed on the ADIEC adjacent track where another long distance train was traveling from Puerto de Atoche to Huelva and it also derailed.

In addition, part of one of the trains fell down a 4 meter embankment.

Around 400 passengers and staff were traveling on the two trains.

Survivors described the moment of the collision.

The first thing we noticed was a sudden braking, but we remained in place.

We didn't have time to react when in a fraction of a second, another much stronger impact came which caused suitcases, clothes and people to be scattered all over the carriage.

We were very lucky because the scene was absolutely terrifying.

The overhead lines had fallen, cables were everywhere.

The train was travelling on the Malaga to Madrid line when the accident happened in a remote area of southern Spain.

A spokesperson for the Red Cross said this complicated rescue efforts.

Spain's Transport Minister described the incident as extremely strange and the train's operator confirmed on Monday morning that the derailed vehicle underwent an inspection just days ago.

TWA correspondent Nicole Reese is following the story for us from the Spanish capital, Madrid.

Nicole, the Spanish Transportation Minister has called this accident extremely weird.

Do we already know more about why it happened?

Extremely weird and also difficult to explain.

And he also said that this whole accident happened on a straight stretch of this connection, which makes it extremely weird that the train wasn't that old at all.

And that the train tracks there also always have been under maintenance, have been renewed.

So this makes this tragic accident very strange.

What we know so far is what we just heard, that one train going from Malaga to Madrid derailed.

The rear part of the carriage is actually derailed due to an unknown course.

They then went into the opposite tracks and they were hit by another train there.

And then some of the carriages actually apparently fell down an embankment of about 4 meters.

It's sort of a secondary crash that happened there.

The country at the moment is, when you talk to people here, is in a state of shock and despair because nobody quite understands what happened last night.

This is a very frequently used connection between Malaga and Madrid.

Many commuters who are probably on this train going back to Madrid to work today on a Monday, they've been going back to the villages or cities just for the weekend.

It will be for a few days or even more time until these train carriages also have been removed from the tracks, until authorities actually have been able to start investigating it as well.

So we're all very shocked here, but also in the dark about what actually caused this accident.

The trains have reportedly been fully evacuated.

Now, Nicole, how difficult was the rescue operation?

It was a quite difficult rescue operation given that these carriages also, some of them fell down this embankment.

Obviously carriages were bent and twisted.

The military emergency unit was on the ground also to cut people out of these trains to go there through the metal.

In the meantime, also hospitals had stocked up on staff nearby just to make sure that they have enough people to take care of the victims, which are many.

There are more than 100 people currently in hospital, some of them in a severe state, in a life threatening situation.

What we also understand is that the first people who were on site to help were actually locals just trying to get people out of these carriages.

Those ones who were approachable, giving you food, also drinks.

Also the local police went on and then the emergency unit also obviously was deployed as a matter of necessity in this moment.

Certainly train travel is huge in Spain overall.

Well, train, the train network here is very safe.

You might know the feeling when you sit on a train.

Well, there are obviously delays, but other than that, accidents happen less.

Of course, the last accident that was quite big here in Spain was in 2013 when a train in northern Spain, close to Santiago de Compostela derailed due to the driver heading into a curve above the permitted speed limit.

So this was a human cause which made this accident happen.

Now, today, we don't know if there's a human error or if it was a technical issue.

What happened, what happened on these train tracks.

We also understand here that the driver of this train unfortunately has passed away.

He would maybe be an important witness for this, but

there will be a lot of investigations that the country is trying to sort out and deal with the amount of victims as well who are in hospitals currently receiving treatment.

Spain looking for answers in the aftermath of this tragic train collision.