Spain is beginning three days of national mourning after at least 68 people died and dozens were injured in one of the deadliest rail disasters in modern European history.
Emergency workers searched through the night under powerful floodlights, cutting through metal carriages to recover victims, reports BBC.
Many of those killed in Wednesday’s crash have yet to be identified.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the disaster, which occurred when a train travelling from Madrid to Seville crashed into a stationary train on Wednesday morning.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the “whole of Spain is grieving”, adding that “lives have been shattered, families have been torn apart, the pain is immense”.
Spain’s interior ministry said hundreds of personnel had been deployed to the site to support recovery operations.
Rescue teams also used drones and helicopters to locate victims and clear debris.
The stationary train, operated by private rail company Iryo, was carrying 147 passengers when it stopped on the tracks because of a computer failure, according to Transport Minister Óscar Puente.
He said a 24-hour control centre in Madrid takes charge when such a system failure occurs.
However, the centre made an “inexplicable” decision to instruct the trains to resume movement without imposing any speed restrictions.
Audio recordings of communications between train controllers in Madrid and drivers appear to indicate that one high-speed train received clearance to move despite another train ahead having stalled.
Iryo said its train was “struck from behind” by another train operated by state-owned railway company Renfe, which was carrying 397 passengers. The impact sent several carriages down an embankment.
Witnesses described scenes of chaos, with passengers crying and bleeding, people trapped in their seats and smoke filling the carriages. One carriage caught fire.
Sánchez said it was “unacceptable” that Spain had suffered two major rail disasters this year. In January, a high-speed train crash near Córdoba killed 46 people. That accident occurred on the same railway line as Wednesday’s crash, although much further south.
Most political parties suspended their election campaigns following the disaster.
The far-right party Vox was the exception. Its leader, Santiago Abascal, said his party would not participate in what he described as attempts to “use mourning to silence criticism” of the country’s rail infrastructure.
