CASTELLDEFELS, Spain — A train speeding through a seaside rail station plowed into a group of youths taking a shortcut across the tracks to get to a beach party, killing at least 12, injuring 14 and turning a festive night meant to welcome the start of summer into one of carnage and tragedy, officials and witnesses said Thursday.
It was Spain’s deadliest train accident since 2003, when 19 people died in a collision between passenger and freight trains in the southeastern town of Chinchilla.
The youths — at least some of them described as Latin American immigrants — got off a commuter train in the beach resort of Castelldefels outside Barcelona shortly before midnight Wednesday to head to the party. About 30 climbed down off the platform and tried to scurry across the tracks instead of using an underpass to leave the station, witnesses said.
Seconds later, a long-distance train that was not scheduled to stop at the station barreled into the youths at high speed, its whistle shrieking.
As an investigation got under way, the chairman of the state railway company RENFE, Teofilo Serrano, said he was “almost certain” the long-distance train was not exceeding the speed limit as it came through the station. He said he did not know how fast it was going.