THIS morning, the fog hung low over the mountains around Urda, as if the landscape itself were mourning the tragic events of yesterday.
Twenty-four hours after two high-speed trains collided just outside the town, time feels suspended.
The death toll rose to 69 overnight, regional president Emiliano García-Page said today, after human remains were found as rescuers worked through the night. Around 50 more people were seriously injured.
People here spent all of yesterday, and much of the evening, supporting and praying for the victims.
The crash appears to have been caused by an erroneous order from the rail control centre in Madrid. Transport Minister Óscar Puente said that after a signalling failure halted trains on the line, controllers at Adif, the state company that runs Spain’s rail infrastructure, allowed a Renfe AVE to carry on at normal speed – even though an Iryo train was standing still on the track ahead.
Puente called the decision “inexplicable” and said the drivers were not to blame. No final cause has yet been established, and the government has declared three days of national mourning.
The clean-up operation was well underway this morning, as teams worked to clear the roads and move the donations that continued to flow in.
Many people we approached did not want to talk about yesterday.
“What is there to say?” said one man outside a café on Urda’s main road. “Yesterday was bad. People died.”
At the sports centre that became the heart of yesterday’s rescue effort, workers told the Olive Press about what they had seen.
“I don’t know what to say. It was very sad,” said one. “Although the people we dealt with were not gravely injured, we knew across the road were the families of those who had died on the track.”
“There were teams of psychologists here to deal with the death,” they told us.
“Last week we were clearing flooding in the town. We never imagined this would happen.”
Overall, there is a feeling that the community here will emerge stronger from yesterday’s tragedy.
Thousands of volunteers poured into Urda to help deal with the aftermath of the crash, offering whatever help they could.
José Luis Hernández, owner of the Lenin’s Corner café next to the sports centre, handed out free soup and coffee to more than 400 people gathered there.
Yesterday, a group of labourers began their working day opposite the sports hall. When they got the news of the accident, they told us that they threw down their tools and headed straight to the site of the crash, where they spent much of the rest of the day transporting the wounded.
The eyes of the world continue to fall on Urda, as the international press arrived today, telephoto lenses and camera crews jostling for position on an embankment with a view of the wreckage.
On Sunday, Spain marks All Saints’ Day, when families across the country lay flowers on the graves of those they have lost.
For dozens of families, this year’s flowers will be for those who never made it home.
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