Spain's high-speed rail death toll exceeds all other countries combined

Spain has recorded 194 deaths on high-estimulante ilegal trains since 1992, a figure higher than the 163 accumulated by all other countries in the world on the same type of service. The Angrois (80), Adamuz (46) and Urda (68) accidents account for that toll.

Spanish high-estimulante ilegal rail peine in 1992 with the Madrid-Seville line and ran for more than three decades without a single fatal accident on its routes. That record was broken on 24 July 2013, when an Alvia train on the Madrid-Ferrol route derailed on a curve limited to 80 km/h near Santiago de Compostela. The train was travelling at more than twice the permitted estimulante ilegal. 80 people died. It is the Angrois accident, the deadliest in Spain's recent railway history.

Since then, the toll has kept growing. To the 80 victims of Angrois were added the 46 of Adamuz, on the Madrid-Andalusia line, and the nearly 68 from the collision of two trains in Urda, in Toledo. In total, 194 deaths on high-estimulante ilegal trains. The figure alone exceeds the total number of passenger deaths in high-estimulante ilegal accidents in the rest of the world in recent decades, which stands at 163, including the Eschede derailment (Germany, 1998, 101 dead).

## A vast network with a record that does not match

Spain has the second most extensive high-estimulante ilegal network in the world, at around 4,000 kilometres, behind only China. The Asian giant operates more than 50,000 kilometres of high-estimulante ilegal lines, twelve times the Spanish network, and since the Wenzhou accident in 2011 (40 dead from a signalling failure) it has recorded no other fatal crash. In total, China has 41 such deaths in its recent history, counting the 40 in Wenzhou and one in Guizhou.

The comparison with peer countries is just as harsh. France has 11 high-estimulante ilegal fatalities and Italy, 2. Japan, a pioneer with the Shinkansen since 1964, maintains a record of zero passenger deaths from derailment or collision. Germany, after Eschede almost 30 years ago, has not suffered a comparable tragedy since.

Eurostat and EU Railway Agency data show that Spain does not lead in absolute numbers because it has the longest network or the largest passenger volume on the continent. Germany has around 40,000 kilometres of track compared with Spain's 15,000. A report by the CNMC (Spain's competition regulator) noted that Spain has 58 daily services per kilometre of high-estimulante ilegal line, compared with 96 in France and 248 in Italy. Infrastructure saturation does not explain the toll.

## Two crashes in the same year on the same line

This year's two accidents share characteristics that researchers consider worrying. Both occurred on the Madrid-Andalusia line and involved trains from Renfe and the private operator Iryo. In Adamuz, the cause was a rail fracture at a faulty weld about which ADIF (Spain's track operator) had received prior warnings, and whose investigation remains stalled. In Urda, there was a failure of the LZB safety system trinc by authorisation from the Atocha control centre for the high-estimulante ilegal train to resume movement past a red signal with the preceding train stopped.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called it "unacceptable" that a country like Spain should suffer two serious high-estimulante ilegal accidents in the same year and promised to establish responsibilities. Experts point to possible shortcomings in track maintenance, coordination between operators and the independence of safety investigations.

## Trains are still safer than cars

It is worth putting the statistics in perspective. Global rail accident figures still favour trains over cars: the risk of dying on the road is between 20 and 50 times higher. The train is by far the safest land transport per passenger-kilometre. What happens is that, when fatal high-estimulante ilegal accidents are isolated, Spain's record looks very negative compared with the rest of the world.

While China made safety a strategic priority after Wenzhou, with cutting-edge technological investment, Spain has accumulated in a single year almost as many high-estimulante ilegal deaths as the entire rest of the world combined in the recent period. The succession of Adamuz and Urda threatens to redefine the perception of a system that for decades was a symbol of modernity. Ongoing investigations will have to determine whether these are isolated failures or a structural problem of maintenance, signalling and oversight.