Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, announced he is stepping down six days after a high-speed rail collision south of Madrid killed 69 people.
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Spain’s transport minister Óscar Puente announced Tuesday that he is stepping down, six days after a fatal high-speed rail collision south of Madrid killed 69 people. Puente made the announcement at the end of a lengthy appearance before lawmakers about the crash, the second deadly high-speed rail collision in Spain this year. “A transport minister in a country like Spain cannot remain in office after two accidents of this seriousness in less than a year,” Puente told lawmakers. The Oct. 28 crash happened when a high-speed train slammed into another train that had stopped on the tracks. The sequence of events began when a communications system key to the security system on the Madrid–Seville line went down. Central controllers in Madrid took over and gave the go-ahead for a state-operated Renfe high-speed train to proceed even though a stationary train ahead, operated by Iryo, was on the line. Puente said he had decided to resign immediately after the deadly crash, but did not make it public at the time. He added that the country’s rail safety concerns are being addressed through government measures announced earlier Tuesday, including improving conditions in control centres and pushing for a faster rollout of the standardized European Rail Traffic Management System for safety and signalling. The most recent crash came four weeks before a national election. Puente also pointed to a January deadly crash on the same Madrid–Seville corridor in which a train derailed and struck another traveling in the opposite direction, killing 46 people; that earlier crash remains under investigation.
scope International
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