Spain is a country in mourning today after a high-speed train crash killed at least 68 people and injured at least 80 others, 15 of them very seriously.

As rescue workers continue to search the wreckage, here is a recap of key events:

• The two high-speed trains crashed south of the Spanish capital, Madrid. The Castilla-La Mancha regional government has warned that the number of fatalities could rise further.
• A train operated by state-owned Renfe struck the rear of another train operated by private company Iryo, which had stopped on the tracks. The Iryo train departed Madrid at 7.54am (local time), bound for Seville, while the Renfe AVE service left minutes later, at 8am, travelling in the same direction.
• The two trains were carrying a combined total of 544 passengers, according to Spanish media.
• A major rescue operation is ongoing at the crash site near Urda, as hundreds of anxious families await news.
• Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente said that the crash was caused by what he called the “inexplicable” order from a central command centre after a security system had failed. He said the train engineers were not to blame.
• Authorities are still determining how fast the train was going but it could have been at 200km/h for that stretch of the track.
• It’s the second major train crash this year in Spain – and involved the same two rail operators. In January a high-speed train crash killed 46 passengers. It’s also Spain’s deadliest rail disaster since 2013, when 80 people were killed in a derailment in the country’s north-west.
• Spain is set to begin three days of mourning.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are not aware of any Australians impacted by the train crash in Spain that has taken at least 68 lives and injured dozens more, Education Minister Jason Clare has confirmed.

“As you’d expect we got consular officials in Spain who stand ready to help any Australians or any Australian families if they are affected,” he told ABC TV moments ago.

“I think the whole country is in shock at the moment seeing these images on our screens, [they’re] just horrific.”

A key question about this horrific crash is whether the Iryo train should have been moving, or moving faster, when it was struck from behind on the high-speed line heading south from Madrid to Seville.

The Spanish government’s early statements indicate that as many as six trains on the same line had been stopped at some point on Wednesday morning due to problems with the signalling system.

Transport Minister Óscar Puente said an order had been given for some of the six trains to resume their journeys.

Iryo is now flatly contradicting that statement. The company has told El Mundo, one of the major media outlets in Spain, that its train driver did not receive an order to resume movement.

There are fears for one of Spain’s former government ministers, Fátima Báñez, who was known to be on the Iryo train that was struck from behind at Urda.

There has been no word about Báñez since the crash, and Spain’s main employers’ organisation CEOE, which she chaired, has confirmed she was on board.

She was on her way to a meeting of the Andalusian employers’ confederation.

An economist and lawyer, Báñez was minister for employment and social security from 2011 to 2018 as a member of the People’s Party.

The leader of the party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said on Wednesday that there was no confirmed information about her fate in the train crash.

Passenger Roberto Gómez has recounted the terrifying moment the high-speed train he was travelling on crashed into another train ahead of it.

Gómez, who is a Spanish journalist, told Onda Cero radio he had been asleep when his train came to a halt and passengers were informed of congestion on the tracks. It resumed its journey shortly afterwards, before the crash occurred.

“The impact was terrible,” he said.

“You can imagine, the carriage is completely destroyed. All the suitcases are all over the wrecked carriage.”

Warning: Graphic content

Urda, Spain: Shocked residents of Urda swung into action to help as soon as they heard the deadly train crash on the railway line a few kilometres from the normally sleepy Spanish town.

Urda’s 78-year-old pharmacist said he was one of the first on the scene, jumping into his car to try to help after his daughter told him of the crash involving two high-speed trains.

Antonio Garcia said that as he approached, the scale of the accident that has so far left at least 68 people dead became clear, with one carriage wedged inside another and scores of bodies.

The crash occurred on Wednesday morning (Thursday AEDT) in the province of Toledo, and involved two high-speed trains heading in the same direction from the capital Madrid to Seville in south-western Spain.

Rescue workers in Spain are scouring the wreckage for more bodies at the crash scene where at least 68 people were killed when two high-speed trains collided, in the country’s second deadly railway accident this year.

Reuters

A teenage girl who was travelling on one of the trains has described hearing “people screaming in panic” as they trapped under the wreckage.

“A lot of people couldn’t get out. I heard screams … It was horrific,” Eduarda, 17, told the BBC.

“It was a catastrophe … I could hear people screaming in panic.”

A Castilla-La Mancha regional spokesperson said 147 people were on board the Iryo train and 397 on the Renfe service.

Passenger Rafael Barcelo said he felt lucky as he had stepped away from his seat for a coffee, adding there had been at least eight victims from his carriage.

“We were having breakfast, drinking a coffee when we felt a very strong impact and we were sent flying,” he said.

Images from the scene of Spain’s devastating train crash reveal the scale of the destruction, with mangled carriages, debris strewn across the tracks, and emergency crews working amid the wreckage.