MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spain’s transport minister resigns after the train crash that killed at least 69 people

Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente resigned on Tuesday, six days after a collision between two high-speed trains near the town of Urda, in Toledo province, that killed at least 69 people. Puente also said he was withdrawing his name from the Socialist Party’s lists for the snap general election on November 29.

“A transport minister in a country like Spain cannot remain in office after two accidents of this seriousness in less than a year,” he told Congress at the end of a lengthy session in which he presented new rail safety measures and faced opposition criticism. He was also referring to the crash at Adamuz, in Córdoba, on the same line, which killed 46 people in January. Puente said his decision was driven by “political dignity”. Days earlier he had said he did not intend to step down.

The People’s Party and Vox, as well as some of the government’s allies, had called for his resignation, accusing him of blaming human error for the crash to avoid responsibility for a high-speed rail system whose credibility Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez admitted was “broken”. Sánchez praised Puente, who “faced up to the situation, provided answers and solutions, and then stepped aside. Out of dignity. Of his own accord. Out of respect for the victims.”

The crash happened on the morning of October 28 on the Madrid-Seville line, when a Renfe AVE train carrying 397 passengers ran into the back of an Iryo train with 147 passengers on board, which had stopped after a failure in the computerised signalling system. Recordings of conversations between the control centre and the drivers, published by the Spanish press, show the controller authorised the AVE to continue “at normal speed” even though the Iryo train was still stationary about 25 kilometres ahead. In another recording, the Iryo driver warns the control centre that he cannot restart the train. It was Spain’s worst rail disaster since the Santiago de Compostela crash in 2013.

The resignation comes at a key moment in the political calendar, less than four weeks before the general election. According to the BBC, many analysts see the crash as a heavy blow to the prospects of the Socialist government, which polls already placed behind the People’s Party.