Unbearable disasters

For the second time in nine months, all of Spain is stunned by images of two high-speed trains shattered on a track in the middle of the countryside, by the appalling death toll and by the harrowing accounts of survivors of a rail crash that will have its own page in history. Almost 400 people were aboard the AVE train that, at 8.53 a.m. on Wednesday, collided with an Iryo train stopped on the Madrid–Andalucía line near Urda (Toledo), which had 146 people on board. The toll of 69 dead is still provisional. The number of injured exceeds 100. In these critical hours, it is necessary to convey to those who have lost a loved one the empathy and solidarity of all of Spanish society. The testimonies of families and survivors will be the anchor to ensure the scale of this human tragedy is never forgotten.The provisional sequence of events described by the Ministry of Transportation begins with a failure of the electronic safety system that controls traffic on the line, something that is uncommon but can happen. Six trains stopped automatically, and control of safety passed to the Atocha control center. From there, someone gave the order for the AVE to resume travel at normal speed, despite a red signal and a train stopped ahead. The collision was extremely violent. That decision, taken by an operator, is now the main enigma. Minister Óscar Puente called it an “erroneous decision” and talked about “inexplicable circumstances.” Only the caution required by a judicial investigation can justify delaying an explanation, even a preliminary one, to a country stunned by the inconceivable.Last January, two high-speed trains collided in Adamuz (Córdoba) and left 46 dead in the worst rail disaster since Angrois (Pontevedra) in 2013. That was pointed to as a turning point in the development of Spain’s high-speed network, a decades-long project that has won Spain worldwide recognition as a leader in transportation infrastructure. The subsequent reflection affected every aspect of rail transportation, from safety protocols and the state of infrastructure to communication protocols, commercial liberalization and route congestion. Now Spain asks how such a tragedy could have happened again on high-speed lines, and that collective trauma has been reopened in the most painful way. This time, without the elements of fatality and chance present in Adamuz. The crisis of confidence opening up regarding the reliability of the state is incalculable.That is why what happened in Urda is not only a human tragedy or a rail accident. It is a catastrophe that affects citizens on a deeper level, and no analysis can avoid noting that Spain is watching images of horror while preparing to vote in a general election on November 29. All parties except [the far-right] Vox have suspended their campaigning. Citizens will judge those who put grief above campaigning, just as they notice when someone tries to ride the wave of legitimate social indignation. There is still time to bring politics into the conversation, but this is a moment for restraint and respect, for unity and responsibility.It falls to everyone to rise to the occasion for a nation in shock that demands answers, a country that asks not only how this can happen, but how it can happen twice, in a country that has gone from feeling pride in the efficiency and modernity of its infrastructure to becoming a European exception because of the accumulation of rail tragedies in such a short time. The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, put it into words: “It is unacceptable for a country like Spain to suffer two high-speed rail accidents in the same year.” Indeed it is, and that requires investigating what and who failed, and for there to be accountability. Transportation Minister Óscar Puente was also in charge during the Adamuz accident, and at the time he said the probability of a similar accident on Spain’s rail network was “very low, extremely low.” On Wednesday, it happened again. The demand for accountability is even greater now than it was then.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition