The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) joined Spanish police on Nov. 6 (local time) to examine documents at the Madrid offices of rail infrastructure manager ADIF and the national rail safety agency AESF. According to Kyunghyang Shinmun, citing Yonhap, the focus is whether EU subsidies earmarked for safety, signalling and communications upgrades on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line were properly used.
According to Kyunghyang Shinmun, the EPPO said in a Nov. 6 statement that it visited the Madrid offices of both bodies with Spanish police and obtained documents. The subject is EU money allocated to renovating and modernising the safety, signalling and communications systems of the Madrid-Seville line. No announcement that wrongdoing has been established, and no named suspects or subsidy amounts, have been confirmed in the reporting.
광고 문의 · 300×250The background is the Oct. 28 crash. According to Spanish outlet idealista, shortly before 9 a.m. on the Madrid-Seville route near Urda in Toledo province, a Renfe AVE high-speed train struck the rear of a stationary Iryo train. More than 500 people were aboard the two trains, and some carriages left the track.
69 dead, cause not yet established
As of Oct. 29, idealista put the death toll at no fewer than 69 and the injured at more than 100. Six hospitals treated 110 people, 107 of them admitted; about 53 remained in hospital at the time, 15 in critical condition. Castilla-La Mancha regional president Emiliano Garcia-Page said more bodies might be found. The figures date from that point and may have changed since.
The same outlet described the sequence this way: around 8:30 a.m., a communication failure across three computers disabled the LZB train-protection system, halting trains on a 63 km section. ADIF's Madrid control centre then told some stopped trains to resume normal running, a decision Transport Minister Oscar Puente called inexplicable. Government sources raised human error as a possible cause, while Iryo reportedly said its driver remained in contact with the control centre and had not been told to move.
No final cause has been established. A technical investigation by the rail accident investigation body CIAF and a judicial inquiry led by a judge in Orgaz are running in parallel, and the controller who gave the order is reported to have been questioned. The drivers' union SEMAF urged caution against drawing conclusions.
Second EU probe this year, as rail safety meets subsidy oversight
This is the second such probe this year. Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that after two high-speed trains collided near Adamuz in Andalusia in January, killing 46, the EPPO likewise investigated possible subsidy fraud involving EU funds for track works. Together, the two accidents have killed more than 100 people. But no evidence has been reported so far that the two crashes share a cause, and the EPPO inquiry targets the use of EU money, not the cause of the accidents.
No confirmed reporting says how the Spanish government or ADIF responded to the document search. The BBC, as relayed by Kyunghyang Shinmun, reported that more people are avoiding trains after the crash, with many services cancelled and platforms deserted. With Spain heading to a general election on Nov. 29, whether rail safety becomes a political issue bears watching.
