Canadian citizen confirmed dead after Spain high-speed rail crash: Officials
· Toronto Sun
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Spanish officials have confirmed that one Canadian died in last week’s high-speed rail crash south of Madrid .
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The update on Sunday said that four American citizens and one person each from Canada, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Tunisia and the Czech Republic were among the 69 people killed and more than 100 injured when two trains collided near Urda, Spain, which is about 150 km south of the capital.
A legal body tasked with identifying the victims had already announced the deaths of French and Portuguese citizens as well as 54 Spaniards, according to AFP.
Officials said in a statement issued late Sunday that three of the victims had yet to be identified.
An email seeking a comment from Global Affairs Canada was not immediately returned.
Six Canadians injured, another missing
The Wednesday morning crash that involved a high-speed train slamming into another that had been stopped on the tracks also left six Canadians injured with one citizen unaccounted for, GAC officials previously told the Toronto Sun . It was unclear if the deceased Canadian was the one who was missing.
“Canadian officials are providing consular assistance and are in contact with local authorities to gather more information,” spokesperson Thida Ith told the Toronto Sun ‘s Denette Wilford on Wednesday.
“Our thoughts are with their families and loved ones as well as all of those affected.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday that the federal government was ready to provide “any assistance” required and that his thoughts were with the “victims and their loved ones in the days and weeks ahead.”
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2nd deadly crash this year in Spain
Esther Padilla, a representative for the Castilla-La Mancha autonomous region that includes Urda, said in a statement on Thursday that 50 people were also hospitalized with various injuries, while another 15 were receiving critical care at different facilities.
Transport Minister Oscar Puente said at the time that an “inexplicable” decision from a control centre in Madrid allowed a high-speed, state-owned Renfe train to resume running before slamming into a privately owned Iryo train from behind.
Puente said control centre procedures were being investigated, but added that train operators were not to blame.
It followed a fatal January crash involving Renfe and Iryo trains on the same line near Adamuz, about 250 km southwest of Urda, that killed 46 people and left dozens injured.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday that trust in the transit system had been “broken” after the two crashes.
“It’s unacceptable for a country like Spain — which has such a powerful high-speed rail system — to experience two accidents of this nature and magnitude within a single year,” Sanchez said, via The Guardian .
“Therefore, our task isn’t merely to investigate the causes of what occurred, but also to provide solutions to further strengthen our nation’s high-speed rail system. Public trust in the high-speed system has been broken; the government’s responsibility goes beyond diagnosing the causes — it must also offer solutions to ensure that a tragedy of this scale doesn’t happen again.”