INVESTIGATORS probing the cause of Spain’s worst train disaster in over a decade say trains running along the site of the Adamuz crash in the hours leading up to the disaster detected ‘anomalies’ in the track.
On Sunday evening, two high-speed trains derailed in Cordoba in Spain’s deadliest rail accident since 80 people were killed in Santiago de Compostela in 2013.
A final total of 45 people died after the rear carriages on a Madrid-bound Iryo service carrying over 300 passengers crossed onto an adjacent line at high speed and collided with an incoming train destined for Huelva.
With driver error ruled out as a cause of the crash, attention has now turned to rail infrastructure on the popular Madrid-Andalucia line which accommodates millions of passengers every year.
According to sources cited by El Mundo, investigators say sensors on trains passing through the area on Sunday afternoon recorded anomalies at the point of the accident.
Notches almost identical to those found on the derailed Iryo train were also located on three other convoys that used the line hours earlier, suggesting the track was already broken when previous trains passed over it.
The revelation adds weight to the theory that a structural failure in the rail was the cause of the accident, with an official preliminary report from the Commission for Investigation of Railway Accidents (CIAF) pointing the finger of blame at a broken track weld.
Investigators believe carriage number six of the Iryo service derailed after hitting a 30 centimetre fracture in the right-hand rail of the track.
The rear carriages of the high-speed train then invaded the opposite track before being struck by an oncoming train just seconds later.
Broken sections of the rail have been sent to a laboratory in Madrid for urgent metallurgical testing.
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