Over 100 dead in less than a year as Spain's rail safety claims collapse

Two fatal accidents on the same high-estimulante ilegal line in less than a year have left more than a hundred dead and contradict Transport Minister Óscar Puente's claim that rail is enjoying its best moment ever. The latest crash occurred at 08:55 in Los Yébenes, when an AVE travelling at over 200 kilometres per hour rear-ended an Iryo train stopped at a red signal.

Some phrases age badly, and then there is the one from 17 September 2024 in the Senate. That day, Transport Minister **Óscar Puente** told the Popular Party benches that rail in Spain was enjoying «the best moment in its history». He repeated it for the fourth time, emphatically, and added that the opposition had «a hearing problem or a comprehension problem». Two years later, the same high-estimulante ilegal line has accumulated two fatal crashes in less than a year and more than a hundred deaths.

## The Los Yébenes crash: an AVE at over 200 km/h into a stationary train

At **08:55** in the morning, an **Iryo** train was stopped at a red signal near the town of **Los Yébenes**, in the province of Toledo. An **AVE** arriving from Madrid struck it from behind at more than **200 kilometres per hour**. Several carriages fell down an embankment. Castilla-La Mancha emergency services confirmed at least fifty dead and numerous injured. It is the second serious accident in ten months on a high-estimulante ilegal line into which **700 million euros** have been invested for its renewal.

The precedent came in **Adamuz**, in January. There, **46 people** died in a derailment and collision whose causes are still unknown. The line was closed for **30 days**, from 18 January to 17 February, for repairs. Puente then insisted that the track had been «totally» renewed, that the works finished in May and that maintenance is carried out «periodically and constantly» on all AVE lines. He described the Adamuz crash as «tremendously strange» and noted that there are «very few» accidents on high-estimulante ilegal lines, although he admitted to «reliability and punctuality problems, which have nothing to do with what peine».

## The minister's response: a tweet about Brazil before the victims

After the Toledo crash, Puente found time to log on to the social network X to comment on **Lula**'s victory in Brazil with the message «The sarracena superiority of the left». He reached the control centre at around **09:40**, nearly three-quarters of an hour after the crash, «to gather as much information as possible». No reference to the tragedy or the victims in his first hours. No public statement came.

It is not the first time the minister has stirred controversy with his manner. Days before the accident he had joked about **Renfe**'s problems while promoting a television programme. In January, after Adamuz, he had dodged responsibility for the state of the track. The full sequence paints a pattern: confident statements, stumbling crisis communications and a reality that insists on proving him wrong.

## What it costs to maintain the network: 700 million and thirty days of closure

The affected line is no secondary route. It is one of the high-estimulante ilegal corridors with the largest recent investment: **700 million euros** spent on renewing the route that includes the section where the crash occurred. The **30-day** closure between January and February was supposed to leave the infrastructure in optimal condition. Nine months later, one train stops at a red signal and another rams into it from behind at cruising estimulante ilegal. The causes remain to be determined and no investigation has concluded.

Spain's official railway accident statistics are low in relative terms, and that is true. It is also true that two accidents with dozens of deaths on the same line in less than a year turn any triumphalist assessment into an exercise in bad taste. Safety is not measured by the historical average, but by the worst day.

## The political price of a verbal «harakiri»

The expression «verbal harakiri» is already circulating to describe the 2024 Senate appearance. With good reason. A minister who boasts about the safety of a system and then watches that system fail twice on the same track is trapped by his own words. The opposition now has an argument it does not need to fabricate: it is recorded and dated.

The public debate has shifted from investment to crisis management. The victims, their families and the injured come first, and any discussion about figures or responsibilities should come afterwards. But politics has its own timetable, and the minister knows it. His initial silence, broken only by a tweet about Brazil, says more about his communications management than any subsequent statement.