Name: Source: broken joint found on track at Spanish rail crash site
Uploaded: 2026-01-19T19:25:15.372Z
Duration: 2 min 2 s
Description: Experts studying the cause of the derailment of a high-speed train in Spain - which killed dozens of people - found a broken joint on the rails, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Experts studying the cause of the derailment of a high-speed train in Spain - which killed dozens of people - found a broken joint on the rails, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Adamuz

A high-speed train derailment and collision in Córdoba, Spain, resulted in dozens of fatalities and over 100 injuries, marking one of the most severe railway accidents in Europe in decades. Investigators discovered a broken joint, known as a fish plate, on the track, which had shown signs of wear for some time and is believed to have contributed to the accident.

Authorities have stated that the collision occurred too quickly for emergency brakes to be activated, and human error has been largely ruled out. Spanish officials, including the Prime Minister, have promised a transparent investigation, while records indicate that this stretch of track has experienced multiple infrastructure issues in recent years.

Source: broken joint found on track at Spanish rail crash site

Police footage taken on Monday shows the sheer scale of a high-speed train derailment and crash with an oncoming train. Dozens of people were killed and over 100 injured on Sunday, making it one of the worst railway accidents in Europe in 80 years. Experts probing the cause of the accident found a broken joint on the rails, according to a source briefed on initial investigations into the disaster. Technicians on site analysing the rails identified some wear on the joint between sections of the rail, known as a fish plate, which they said showed the fault had been there for some time, the source said. They found that the faulty joint created a gap between the rail sections that widened as trains continued to travel on the track. Earlier Spain's transport minister Oscar Puente said a derailment on a well-maintained stretch of track was tremendously strange and had confounded experts. Ana survived the crash along with her sister. Some people were fine and others were really bad and we had them in front of us and you could see them dying and you could do nothing. I was on this side and I started to go up and I thought it wasn't normal. I travel a lot by train, that's where I looked at my sister. I looked for her and it's the last moment I remember before it all went dark. Suddenly I only heard yelling. Spain's President Alvaro Fernandez Heredia said on local radio that the collision happened about 20 seconds after the derailment, so there was no time to activate an emergency brake and that human error is practically ruled out, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez vowed absolute transparency in the train crash investigation. Ministers, officials and locals paid tribute to those killed and injured with a minute of silence. Problems with infrastructure on that stretch of track, from signalling failures to issues with overhead power lines, have caused delays to high-speed trains 10 times since 2022. That's according to a Reuters review of state-owned rail infrastructure administrator Adif's ex-account.

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