| Santiago de Compostela derailment | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Rescue efforts on 24 July 2013 | |
| Details | |
| Date | 24 July 2013 20:41 CEST (UTC+02:00)[1] |
| Location | Angrois, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain 3.2 km (2.0 mi) SE from Santiago de Compostela |
| Coordinates | 42°51′34.2″N 8°31′40″W / 42.859500°N 8.52778°W |
| Country | Spain |
| Line | Madrid–Galicia high-speed rail line |
| Operator | Renfe |
| Incident type | Derailment |
| Cause | Overspeed on curve |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 1 |
| Passengers | 218[1] |
| Crew | 4 |
| Deaths | 79 |
| Injured | 143 |
| Damage | Eight carriages, one dining car, two generator cars, two locomotives |
The Santiago de Compostela derailment occurred on 24 July 2013, when an Alvia high-speed train traveling from Madrid to Ferrol, in the north-west of Spain, derailed at high speed on a bend about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) outside of the railway station at Santiago de Compostela. Of the 178 people injured, the provisional number of deaths in hospital had reached 79 by the following 28 July.[2]
The train's data recorder showed that it was traveling at over twice the posted speed limit of 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph) when it entered a curve on the track. The crash was recorded on a track-side camera that shows all thirteen train cars derailing and four overturning. On 28 July 2013, the train's driver, Francisco José Garzón Amo, was charged with 79 counts of homicide by professional recklessness and an undetermined number of counts of causing injury by professional recklessness.[3]
The crash was Spain's worst rail accident in over forty years, since a crash near El Cuervo, Seville, in 1972.[4][note 1] It is also the second-deadliest HSR accident in history, after the 1998 Eschede train disaster in Germany.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
renfewas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ (in Spanish) "El fallecimiento de una estadounidense eleva a 79 los muertos en el accidente de Santiago" RTVE. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
- ^ "Spanish train conductor charged in deadly crash". CNN. 28 July 2013. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
- ^ Gómez, Luis (25 July 2013). "El accidente de la cochinita deja 86 muertos". El País. ELPAIS. Retrieved 29 July 2013.