The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, defended this Wednesday that the Spanish railway system is "safe" and, although "it is not perfect", it is one of the "best in the world", in the face of criticism of railway safety, after the accident last January that caused 46 deaths.

First modification: 02/11/2026 - 13:30

The head of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, appeared before Congress to give explanations about Spanish railway safety after the accident on the high-speed line that connects Madrid with Andalusia, near the Cordoba town of Adamuz (south), which caused 46 deaths and whose causes are still being investigated.

The president recalled that on January 18, the derailment of the last three cars of the Iryo company train on the Malaga (South)-Madrid route occurred. Those three cars invaded the adjacent track, along which "unfortunately" another Renfe train was passing just at that moment, "causing a terrible collision between both convoys."

This accident, along with another on the suburban service in Barcelona a few days later, which caused the death of a train driver, sparked a widespread debate in Spain about safety in rail transport and led to a strike in the sector, which took place last Monday.

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The system "has significant shortcomings," "especially" in "some territories," but it is "one of the best in the world," said the president, referring, among others, to a report from the European Commission that supports it.

The Spanish railway network has 15,700 kilometers and is the fifth largest on the European continent. Of them, 4,500 are high-speed, which makes Spain the second country in the world, behind China, in kilometers of fast track, Sánchez pointed out.

"In such an extensive system, incidents occur every day and that is inevitable," he said.

Do not irritate or misinform

Sánchez defended that the Adamuz railway tragedy cannot be speculated or used to "cringe", he stressed that it will be reported "with transparency", and that once the causes of the accident are known, "if necessary and appropriate", "justice" will be done.

"The State as a whole is doing and will do everything in our power to accompany (the victims), to help them and to establish the causes of the accident," he also indicated.

He stressed that this accident will be rigorously investigated and assured that once it is known what exactly went wrong, the necessary measures will be put in place so that this type of tragedies do not happen again.

As already advanced by the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, the president defended that the "comprehensive" renovation of the tracks, such as the one that concluded in 2025 on the Madrid-Seville line, does not imply the change of all the elements of the infrastructure.

Investigators discovered that at the site of the accident there was a breakage of a weld between two sections of track, one new and another that had been preserved as old, which caused controversy, after Puente had stated that the track had been renovated.

The technicians of the Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF) are working to determine the causes of the rail breakage, when they have conclusive results they will share them with the Administrations and public opinion, and then "the necessary measures will be put in place so that it does not happen again," Sánchez added.

"What the Executive cannot do is speculate, misinform or use" this tragedy "to create tension, said Sánchez, who appealed not to "misinform" the population or "generate fear" by saying that our railway network is decadent or unsafe."

For his part, the opposition leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, accused the president of playing "Russian roulette" with the safety of train travelers and of disrespecting the victims of the accident.

Feijóo affirmed that this was "an avoidable accident, not an unforeseeable catastrophe" and warned Sánchez that his Government "will sit on the bench" for what happened.

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