More than 30 people were killed on Monday when a metro train derailed in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia in an apparent accident, as pilgrims began gathering ahead of a papal visit, regional officials said.
An interior ministry spokesperson said any terrorist link had been “completely ruled out”.
“Everything indicates that it was an accident, that the train derailed and was hurled against the walls of a tunnel,” the spokesperson said.
A fire-brigade spokesperson said earlier that two carriages of the train had come off the rails in a tunnel.
“We are still in the process of identifying the dead, but according to an initial estimate there are more than 30,” regional government spokesperson Vicente Rambla told local reporters, radio Cadena Ser reported.
Authorities said there were about 15 people seriously injured.
The fire-brigade spokesperson said that rescue services had evacuated all the remaining passengers trapped in the metro train between the Jesus and Plaza de Espana stations in the city centre.
The accident happened as Valencia was filling up with participants for the Roman Catholic Church’s fifth World Family Meeting this week, which is due to be closed by Pope Benedict XVI at the weekend.
According to the Valencia metro website, the regional government-run company was distributing half-a-million passes to pilgrims and organisers of the event to permit them to travel freely on the system’s four lines.
“It seems it was an accident that was apparently brought about by speed and a failure at the wheel level,” Luis Felipe Martinez, a government official in Valencia, told Cadena Ser radio.
It was a passenger on board who alerted emergency services at 1.03pm local time. Access to the area was sealed off and a security cordon installed. — AFP