Two high-speed trains collided on Sunday in southern Spain, killing at least 40 people and injuring dozens of others, according to the local authorities. An additional 41 people were hospitalized, 12 of them in intensive care, the authorities in Andalucía said Monday evening.

The train crash was the deadliest in Spain since 2013, when 80 people died after a train veered off a curved section of track in the country’s northwest. The country has the world’s second-longest high-speed rail network.

The authorities were investigating whether a break in a section of track at the site of the derailment was “the cause or the consequences” of the derailment.

The crash occurred at 7:45 p.m. local time on Sunday in Adamuz, a small town near the city of Córdoba. A privately operated train traveling to Madrid from Málaga derailed on the country’s southern coast.

Two rear cars of that train fell into the opposite track as it was approaching the Adamuz train station, where they collided with an incoming train operated by Spain’s national rail company, Renfe, the authorities said.

The second train was bound for the southern city of Huelva, west of Seville. The first two cars of that train fell down a 12-foot embankment, according to a provisional investigative report.


Iryo, the operator of the first train, said that about 300 passengers were on board at the time of the crash. Renfe, the operator of the second train, has not said how many passengers its train was carrying.

Spain’s state-owned rail infrastructure agency said in a statement that rail traffic between Madrid and several major cities in southern Andalucía — including Córdoba, Seville, Málaga and Huelva — was suspended on Monday.

Emergency response crews continued to search through the wreckage of the crash on Monday, with officials warning that the death toll may rise.

Initial questions have centered on whether the crash was caused by the condition of the track.

Óscar Puente, Spain’s transport minister, told reporters, the crash took place on a straight stretch of track. He said on Spanish radio that investigators are assessing whether a break in a section of track at the site of the derailment was “the cause or the consequences” of the derailment. But he warned that this was only speculation for now.

He told reporters that the first train to derail was only a few years old and that the section of the track where the accident occurred had been recently renovated.

“The accident is extremely strange,” Mr. Puente said, adding, “All the experts we have consulted are extremely baffled.”

Álvaro Fernández Heredia, the president of Renfe, Spain’s state-owned rail operator, told the Cadena SER radio network, “It wasn’t a speeding issue.” The crash occurred on a stretch of track with a speed limit of about 150 miles per hour. Records show that one train was traveling about 127 m.p.h. and the other about 130 m.p.h., he said.

Íñaki Barrón, president of the Railway Accident Investigation Commission, said in an interview with the broadcaster RTVE that the crash did not seem a result of human error or a problem with signals, and that the cause could lie in “the interaction between the track and the vehicle.”

The Spanish Union of Railway Drivers said it had sent a letter in August asking the state-owned rail operator and Spain’s railway safety agency to look into suspected flaws on lines across Spain, including at the site where the trains crashed. The union emphasized on Monday that it did not know the cause of Sunday’s tragedy.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain expressed sympathy for the victims’ families on social media, saying that “the entire country stands with them in this extremely difficult moment.”

“Tonight is a night of deep pain for our country,” he said.

The Andalucía government has set up a medical post at the crash site for victims, while the Córdoba city government has issued an urgent appeal for doctors to help treat the injured.

Paco Carmona, the director of Córdoba’s fire brigade, told public television that emergency crews were prioritizing assistance for victims still trapped in the two carriages most severely damaged in the crash.