From Adamuz to Urda: 9 months and 11 days between two train crashes in Spain

From Adamuz to Urda: 9 months and 11 days apart

Between the rail accident at Adamuz and the one at Urda, 9 months and 11 days have passed, according to the calculation that has spread over the past few hours. The figure, which at first is nothing more than a calendar subtraction, has been enough for part of the public conversation to treat it as more than a coincidence: the number is repeated, broken down and searched for meaning. As of this discussion, the Urda crash — a collision at kilometer 119 of the Madrid-Seville high-estimulante ilegal line, in the area of Urda, Orgaz and Sarracena — remained the central event of the day.

The Urda accident and the kilometer that changed twice

The exact location of the crash soon became a small labyrinth. Initial reports placed it at kilometer 119+700, at an Adif (Spain's rail infrastructure operator) passing and stabling point; shortly afterwards, the reference was corrected to kilometer 118. That margin of a kilometer and a half — between the initial figure and the corrected one — fed the distrust of those already scrutinizing the numbers.

The place has a name of its own: Urda, a municipality in the province of Toledo that belongs to the judicial district of Alcázar de San Juan. And there begins one of the oddest detours in the conversation. Some have turned to the dictionary to point out that the Spanish verb "urdir" means to scheme and carefully plot something against someone, with synonyms such as intrigue, hatch or conspire. From etymology to suspicion is a short step, and it was taken without friction.

The arithmetic of 33 days and the inclusive count

The second number underpinning the discussion is the days remaining until the elections: exactly 33, according to the initial count. The figure did not add up for everyone. An alternative calculation, using an inclusive count, gave 9 months and 10 days since Adamuz and 32 days until the vote. The one-day discrepancy — immaterial in practical terms — became the center of the exchange: some defended the inclusive count as the correct one, while others accepted it "just barely."

The numerical coincidence, however, did not stop there. Another sum was put on the table: the strike on the 11th, eleven days later the 22nd, and the 22nd of the 11th adding up to 33. A chain of operations that, like all of its kind, works better the more contorted the selection criteria become.

Proper names, places and a square in Madrid

The repertoire of coincidences grew with heterogeneous material. People recalled the death of a former minister born in San Juan (Huelva) who died in Los Yébenes; it was noted that Urda belongs to the judicial district of Alcázar de San Juan; and a rally was mentioned, called for the plaza San Juan de la Cruz in Madrid, next to Nuevos Ministerios. The concatenation of place names matching the "San Juan" pattern did the rest.

To this was added the calendar: the proximity of the full moon and Bill Gates' birthday, which falls on October 28. Any date of the year has, if you look hard enough, an anniversary that makes it seem fateful.

What skepticism rests on, and what does not hold up

The skeptical reading is simple and needs no embellishment: in a country with Spain's rail density and a permanent electoral calendar, the probability of two crashes being separated by an arbitrary interval is high. It is enough to pick the starting point and the endpoint for the subtraction to come out neat. The problem is that the method allows you to obtain almost any result you want.

The other current, a minority but a noisy one, does not claim causality: it points to a pattern. And there the analysis stalls, stuck at exactly the same point where it began, with the figure of 9 months and 11 days on the table and no evidence to support it.