Spain train disaster clouds Sánchez chances of re-election

Another deadly collision on the high-speed rail line south of Madrid has left 69 people dead, with wreckage strewn across the tracks and down an embankment near Toledo. The disaster comes just nine months after two trains crashed near Cordoba, killing 46 people, and has shaken confidence in the country's rail network at the worst possible moment for the Socialist-led government. The formal investigation into the Toledo crash has only just been launched, but the government has moved quickly to control the narrative. From the first hours after the collision, Transport Minister Oscar Puente suggested "human error" was to blame. On Friday, appearing before the press for a second time to set out what he called the "objective facts", he rejected talk of chronic underinvestment and insisted the high-speed LZB signalling system was neither old nor inadequate, noting that Germany and Austria use the same technology. Puente acknowledged that the system has failed 170 times in Spain so far this year, but called that figure "normal" and around the EU average. The crucial question, he indicated, was what happens when the system fails and control of the line shifts to manual. In this case, he highlighted a series of human errors: a controller instructed a stalled train to restart, clearing it to advance at up to 160km/h even though a second train was stuck on the line ahead. The impending collision was visible from audio calls and on screens in the Madrid control centre, and the advancing train was never ordered to stop. The opposition People's Party is among those calling for Puente's resignation as a "moral" and "ethical" step. He refused, saying it was his "duty" to remain, express his "huge pain and sadness" for the victims, and work to improve the system. "I'll face up to things, explain, elucidate," he said. Pollster Paco Camas of Ipsos said the combination of two crashes in under a year risks destroying confidence not only in the railways but in institutions generally. "In Spain when such things happen, we know that people blame their government," he warned. The investigation into January's crash in Adamuz, near Cordoba, remains open, with initial reports pointing to a crack in the rails, a very different cause from the latest collision. For Team Sanchez, the crash is the latest in a spiral of crises. Allegations of corruption against the prime minister's close relatives, all denied, persist. A sudden influx of migrants from Morocco to the exclave of Ceuta this summer drew accusations of incompetence from the right, and the death of Maricarmen Abascal, a pensioner evicted from her home of more than 70 years, sparked widespread housing protests across Spain. That was when Sanchez called the early election. His chances looked slim even before the disaster. Recent polls showed the centre-right People's Party coming first and forming a coalition with the far-right Vox. "They have this majority in almost 95% of the simulations we have done," said Prof Pablo Simon of Madrid's Carlos III University, who added that the government has "totally lost control of the agenda and the emotion of this campaign". Small protests over the crash, led by far-right groups, have already taken place in Madrid, with large numbers of police on stand-by for further clashes organised online. In Toledo, the mood is nervous. Passengers arriving at the city station on half-empty trains described travelling in sadness and fear. "This crash will change all of our votes, completely," one traveller, Paloma, said. "We'll shift from the left wing to the right. Because of everything that's happened." Another daily commuter, Lucia, said: "This was human error. But there's been two accidents now with more than 100 dead. Things here are really bad. They have to change."