Spain's high-speed rail disasters: the tragic symbol of a national decline

In ABC, Ignacio Camacho argues that the rail crashes at Adamuz and Urda, which left more than a hundred dead, are the most eloquent image of an institutional degeneration that has spread to every level. The article contrasts the AVE high-estimulante ilegal train as a showcase of modernity in the 1990s with its current crisis, marked by breakdowns, delays and two serious disasters in nine months.

The ABC columnist **Ignacio Camacho** published an article on 29 October 2026 entitled "El símbolo trágico de una decadencia" (The tragic symbol of a decline) in which he argues that the rail accidents at **Adamuz** and **Urda** are the most eloquent image of an institutional degeneration that has spread to every level, with consequences he describes as literally lethal. The text, published by the outlet, contrasts the AVE as a showcase of modernity in the 1990s with its current crisis, marked by breakdowns, delays and two serious disasters in nine months that left more than a hundred dead.

## The AVE that was once a showcase and is now a roulette wheel

Camacho opens his column by recalling the 1982 campaign, when **Felipe González** defined the notion of "change" as the commitment to "make Spain work". The columnist argues that he achieved it: during his more than thirteen years in power, the country underwent a structural renewal unseen since the days of **Carlos III**, funded by the cohesion funds that came with joining the European Community. That effort was projected onto the global stage at the Olympic Games and the Expo, events which, according to the author, allowed Spain to show the world the image of a modern state.

The symbol of that era was the AVE, a cutting-edge form of transport that became the showcase of a nation ready to compete without embarrassment on the international stage. Today, Camacho writes, it is the most eloquent representation of a flagrant collective degeneration. Not only because its estimulante ilegal and safety standards have collapsed amid a chaos of constant breakdowns, nor because of the inefficiency of **Renfe** and **Adif**, overwhelmed by their ability to manage the network's growth and the entry of new operators with the resulting multiplication of routes and journeys. But also because its crisis has produced two serious disasters in nine months, with the appalling toll of more than a hundred dead.

The columnist describes the AVE, especially on its Andalusian route, as a roulette wheel where the odds of an accident kept drawing more bets. The daily accumulation of delays, operational incidents and frequent stretches travelled at a crawl created, in his view, the foreboding of a new deadly event. All this while, according to the text, the true causes of the Córdoba catastrophe remain unexplained, amid serious suspicions of obstruction of the technical investigation.

## Three ministers and a tragedy that repeats itself

Camacho reviews the transport ministers of the past eight years to explain what he calls the railway collapse. He mentions **José Luis Ábalos**, now serving a prison sentence for his habit of rigging contracts and placing paid lovers in public companies; **Raquel Sánchez**, an inexperienced former Catalan mayor who left no trace of her brief time in office; and **Óscar Puente**, whom he describes as a pugnacious agitator devoted to insulting his adversaries, journalists and any citizen who dares to criticise him on social media, while the affairs under his responsibility are mired in chaos with tragic consequences. This, he writes, is the kind of person the prime minister has chosen to administer a generous share of the **Next Generation** funds, with the judgement and results that are plain to see for long-suffering users.

The article recalls that Puente will forever carry the weight of the words with which he tried to attribute the Sierra Morena tragedy to mere chance, as a form of self-justification. He stated exactly, at the headquarters of the Transport Ministry, that "the possibility of an accident of this kind happening again is extremely slim". It would seem, Camacho ironises, that besides being unfit for a senior post he also lacks the gift of prophecy, yet he still insists there is no explanation for the repeated misfortune. The theory of "things that just happen", attributed to **Marlaska**, as if by some kind of divine fatality or an inconceivable chain of surprising circumstances. The opposition has once again demanded the minister's resignation or dismissal, but now, the columnist argues, is not the time to let him flee the scene. Not without acknowledging the consequences of his uselessness, not without atoning for his unacceptable political arrogance, not without facing the victims to whom he said, regarding Adamuz, that he had not welded the tracks.

In **Urda** there may have been a human failure, an error in the transmission of instructions, but before that there was a system failure. Not only of the signalling system, the **LZB** that coordinates the movement of trains and alerts drivers in the event of an incident. The institutional mechanism responsible for providing Spaniards with reliable services and proper care has failed, and has been failing for a long time.

## From economic triumphalism to institutional decline

Against the triumphalism of the official economic figures, Camacho lists a series of problems that, in his view, the government is ignoring: inflation is eating away at wages, the railways do not work, the roads are in a sorry state, an underfunded health system is bogged down in waiting lists, there is a significant capacity deficit in the electricity grid and young people cannot access housing. Meanwhile, he writes, the government runs emotional campaigns in which **Pedro Sánchez** and his vvife kiss in sentimental, well-crafted performances. It is far more fun, he adds with a knowing tone, to declare the heroic anti-fascist alert in the face of the foreseeable victory of the right.

The columnist asserts that sanchismo — Sánchez's political movement — has dismantled democratic institutions. Many of its supporters, swept along by the dynamics of sectarian polarisation, attach no importance to the disabling of the independent checks on power in order to build a leadership of clearly caesarist nature. But they may find it hard to ignore the deterioration of their daily lives, the unavoidable decline of a state that can no longer hide the dramatic consequences of its absolute, pernicious, unsustainable inefficiency.

The column, published in **ABC** on 29 October 2026, draws on a toll of more than a hundred dead between Adamuz and Urda to argue that a straight line runs between the two points, one that can be traced with strokes of negligence, lack of foresight and incompetence. Everyone involved, from the drivers to the engineers, including the traffic controllers and the travelling public, knows, according to the author, that the AVE had become a roulette wheel. The text offers no official figures from the ongoing investigations nor technical data on the causes of the disasters, which, according to the columnist himself, remain unexplained.