AS long suspected, a broken track weld has been identified as the probable cause of the tragic Iryo train crash in Cordoba.
The official preliminary report from the Commission for Investigation of Railway Accidents (CIAF) points to a structural failure in the rail.
Experts believe carriage number six derailed after hitting the fracture in Adamuz, leading to the collision that claimed 45 lives.
Terrifyingly, the report suggests the track was already broken when previous trains passed over it.
Investigators found identical ‘notches’ on the wheels of three other convoys that used the line hours earlier.
This evidence implies that hundreds of passengers narrowly escaped disaster before the fatal incident.
The report details how the rail likely tilted outwards as carriage five passed, leaving carriage six with ‘no continuity’ to run on.
This caused the carriage to derail and invade the opposite track, where it was struck by an oncoming train seconds later.
Wheels from all trains that used the popular Madrid-Andalucia route in the previous 48 hours will now be analysed.
The focus is on determining exactly when the weld failed and why it was not detected sooner.
Broken sections of the rail have been sent to a laboratory in Madrid for urgent metallurgical testing.
While still a preliminary hypothesis, the CIAF states the wheel damage is ‘compatible’ with an impact against a broken rail head.
The disaster has shaken the expat community, many of whom rely on these high-speed links to commute between the capital and the coast.
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