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At least 35 people have been
killed after a train derailed
outside the northern Spanish city
of Santiago de Compostela,
according to state media and
eyewitnesses.
Train carriages lay on their sides
with smoke billowing from the
wreckage, photographs
published on the Voz de Galicia
newspaper website showed.
The head of Spain's Galicia
region said that at least 35
people had been killed in the
train derailment, although it was
too soon to say what had caused
the accident.
Eyewitnesses said that the
derailed train, which was
reportedly carrying 240
passengers when the accident
happened, had caught fire after
the crash.
"It was going so quickly … It
seems that on a curve the train
started to twist, and the wagons
piled up one on top of the other,"
passenger Ricardo Montesco told
Cadena Ser radio station.
"A lot of people were squashed
on the bottom. We tried to
squeeze out of the bottom of the
wagons to get out and we
realised the train was burning …
I was in the second wagon and
there was fire … I saw corpses,"
he added.
Another witness told the station
they had heard an explosion
before seeing the derailed train.
The Spanish government's main
working hypothesis concerning
the derailment is that it was an
accident, a government
spokeswoman said.
Spanish prime minister Mariano
Rajoy was due to visit the site of
the derailment, on the outskirts
of the city of Santiago de
Compostela on Thursday
morning, she said.
"Rajoy is in an emergency
meeting with the deputy prime
minister, the interior minister
and the public works minister,"
she said. "He will visit the site
tomorrow morning."
Santiago de Compostela, the
birthplace of Rajoy, is best
known as the destination of an
ancient Catholic pilgrimage
route.
