Spain's transport minister refuses to resign over deadly high-speed rail crash

Spain's transport minister Óscar Puente has rejected calls to resign over the high-speed rail collision that killed at least 69 people, telling a news conference in Madrid that he had "nothing to hide". "My duty right now is not to talk about whether I should remain in my position, but to resolve the problem," Puente said, repeating the government's vow to establish why the disaster happened and acknowledging that many questions needed to be answered. Dozens were killed and many more injured when a state-operated Renfe high-speed train smashed into the back of a stationary train operated by the Iryo company near the town of Urda, in the central Toledo province, on Wednesday morning. A preliminary report released by transport investigators late on Thursday found the Renfe train was travelling between 160km/h and 200km/h when the collision occurred, causing its front carriage to become embedded in the tail of the stationary train. The crash was Spain's worst since 2013 and one of the worst rail disasters in Europe's modern history. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Friday that public trust in Spain's high-speed rail network had been broken, repeating that it was "unacceptable" that two similar tragedies had occurred within a year. In January, a collision on the same Madrid-Seville route killed 46 people in Adamuz in southern Spain. Puente said on Wednesday that a computer failure at about 08:30 that morning led to the initial halt of six moving trains, including the two that subsequently collided. Leaked audio recordings published in Spanish media appear to show that Madrid's control centre gave one high-speed train clearance to move even though another had stalled on the track about 25km ahead. The minister had earlier described the decision to instruct the trains to move again without any speed restrictions as "inexplicable". Calls for Puente to step down have come from political rivals, the CSIF trade union and demonstrators who protested outside the transport ministry on Wednesday night, with the conservative People's Party joining the calls after the union did so earlier in the week. The leaking of the recordings has also drawn criticism, with Alberto Ibáñez, a member of Congress for the left-wing Sumar platform, describing them on X as "despicable". Irene Montero, the prime ministerial candidate for the left-wing Podemos party, said responsibility should not be placed on one worker, adding that train drivers and experts had warned against the liberalisation of the railway sector for years. On Friday, Puente said he was "not going to use any worker as a shield" and wanted to examine the questions raised by the tragedy "one by one". "If the investigation shows there is human error we will act in consequence of that," he said. "The easy thing for me would be to leave, but neither that fits with my character nor is it what the Prime Minister has asked me to do." He added that he felt immense pain for the victims and their relatives but could not let that pain paralyse him. The country is observing three days of mourning as families of victims and survivors struggle to comprehend the crash. A 24-year-old athlete and a former government minister are among the dead, but many families are still waiting for information about their loved ones. Esther San Emeterio, whose 54-year-old brother Pepe is still missing, told reporters in Toledo that officials were forcing families to wait in "uncertainty". "We went to bed crying, outraged and full of shame," she said. "We are desperate and I want all of Spain to know. How can they keep us like this?"