SHARE
COPY LINK

TRAIN CRASH

155 lightly injured in train collision near Barcelona

More than 150 people were lightly injured Wednesday when a train ran into the back of another at a station near Barcelona, the emergency services and Spain's Renfe rail operator said.

155 lightly injured in train collision near Barcelona
Train crash injures 155 near Barcelona. Photo: Josep LAGO / AFP

The SEM regional emergency services said the train had been moving very slowly when the collision occurred just before 8am with most people suffering bumps and bruises.

“There was a collision between two trains at 7:50 am at the Montcada i Reixac-Manresa station, on the line heading in to Barcelona, that’s to say one train ran into the back of another,” a spokesman for the state rail operator told AFP.

Speaking to reporters at the scene, a spokesman for the regional fire service said the moving train had collided with “the back part” of a stationary train at Montcada station, which lies some 10 kilometres (six
miles) north of Barcelona.

The train was moving “very slowly (when the collision occurred) but people who were standing up fell over and hurt themselves,” Joan Carles Gomez, an emergency services official told reporters at the scene.

“We have examined 155 people who were affected, of which 14 were taken for further treatment but none are seriously injured,” he said.

“We’re talking about many bruises and some head injuries, but nothing serious.”

He said those taken for further treatment were being “checked at a local health centre… to rule out any fractures”.

Rail traffic along the line was suspended for several hours in both directions and Renfe had opened an investigation into what happened, he said. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

POLITICS

Exiled Catalan leader to announce if he’ll run in regional elections

Exiled Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont will on Thursday announce if he intends to stand in a May 12th regional election in Catalonia, which would presumably involve him returning to Spain seven years after he fled to avoid arrest.

Exiled Catalan leader to announce if he'll run in regional elections

Puigdemont is currently a member of the European Parliament but his JxCat party wants him to head its list for the Catalan regional elections in the hope he will once again become head of the government of the wealthy region.

He will announce his decision in Elne, a small village in southern France near the border with Spain, according to his team in Brussels.

Puigdemont has lived in the Belgian capital since fleeing Spain to avoid arrest over his role in Catalonia’s failed unilateral bid for independence in October 2017.

He led the regional government of Catalonia at the time of the secession bid, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

“We went into exile for the same reasons we must return,” Puigdemont wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in which he confirmed he would speak in Elne on Thursday evening.

“The future of our nation, and not our personal destiny, has inspired all the decisions we have taken, and it must always be like this,” he added.

READ ALSO: Catalonia president calls early regional elections for May 12th

Snap election

Puigdemont had been expected to head his party’s list for the European Parliament elections in June.

But JxCat’s plans were upended on Wednesday when Catalan president Pere Aragonès unexpectedly dissolved the region’s parliament and called the early election.

The following day Spanish MPs approved a draft amnesty law for Catalan separatists involved in the 2017 independence bid, included Puigdemont.

The bill is now before the Senate before it returns to Spain’s lower house for final approval.

In an interview published on Sunday in Spanish daily newspaper El País, JxCat secretary general Jordi Turull confirmed the party wanted Puigdemont to be its candidate in the Catalan election.

Puigdemont had shown that Catalonia was his “priority”, Turull said.

“Now there is the amnesty law, (his) future is not exile but a return.”

SHOW COMMENTS