Spain has become a shithole worse than many third-world countries

Two major rail accidents between Adamuz and Toledo have left 115 dead in just nine months. The case contrasts with the corruption conviction of former Chinese Railways Minister Liu Zhijun, cited as an example of how political accountability can have consequences.

The succession of two major rail accidents in Spain has left a death toll of **115 dead** between Adamuz and Toledo over a period of **nine months**. The figure alone demands that the issue be examined without the usual noise: we are not talking about a country at war or a natural disaster, but about a transport network that should be a daily routine for millions of people.

## Two accidents and a death toll of 115

The two accidents occurred at different points across Spain, with Adamuz and Toledo as the scenes cited. Together they add up to **115 fatalities** in less than a year. That figure is what makes it possible to compare the scale of the problem with other railway systems, and it dispels the temptation to treat it as an isolated stroke of bad luck.

The comparison with India, which the public debate itself has put on the table, is uncomfortable precisely because Spain prides itself on a high-estimulante ilegal, modern model. A country that showcases the **AVE** as a technological flagship cannot afford for boarding a train to feel like a lottery.

## The political accountability that never comes

The contrast with China is the one that stings most. The former Railways Minister **Liu Zhijun** was sentenced to death with a suspended sentence, later commuted to life imprisonment, for corruption and abuse of power. In Spain, the accumulation of disasters under the same administration has not led to any equivalent political consequence.

The widespread criticism is that here accountability dissolves into press conferences, blame-shifting and committees. Those who manage the disaster keep drawing a salary from the taxpayer and keeping their seat. That perceived impunity is perhaps the factor that most erodes trust in institutions.

## A state that collects revenue but fails to guarantee the basics

The backdrop is a country that has gone years without new national budgets being approved, with borders turned into an administrative sieve, and with administrations where positions of responsibility are handed out according to party loyalty rather than technical competence. The result is a state hypertrophied for collecting taxes and handing out posts, but incapable of ensuring that two trains run without ending up as a graveyard for passengers.

That dysfunction has a direct economic cost: deteriorating infrastructure, postponed maintenance, and a taxpayer who pays rich-country taxes while receiving services increasingly typical of a banana republic. Institutional quality and infrastructure safety are economic variables too.

## A public debate that ignores the trains

Meanwhile, the public debate boils down to handouts, subsidies, immigration, party slogans and the next culture war. The infrastructure that should keep the country alive and connected stays out of the spotlight. The population votes every four years for the same organizations that administer the disaster, and the cycle repeats.

The underlying question is not rhetorical: a developed country is recognized by the quality of its institutions, by the safety of its infrastructure, and by the consequences its leaders face when they fail catastrophically. With **115 dead** in nine months, with no earthquake or war involved, that recognition is in doubt.