People in the southern Spanish towns of Huelva and Adamuz held ceremonies Sunday a week on from the rail disaster that killed 45 people, many of them from the area.
Last Sunday’s crash between two high-speed trains happened near the village of Adamuz in the southern region of Andalusia, but most of the victims came from Huelva.
The ceremony in Huelva began with a minute’s silence, at 7:43 pm, the time of the accident.
It was a Madrid-Huelva train that collided head-on with another from Málaga travelling to Madrid. Of the 45 people who died, 36 were passengers on the Huelva-bound train.
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As well as those killed, 22 people are still being treated in hospital for injuries.
In Adamuz, where local people were among the first on the scene to help the victims, a funeral mass was held Sunday.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mayor Rafael Ángel Moreno spoke of the grief local people felt at what had happened.
The Bishop of Cordoba, Jesús Fernández, presided at the funeral ceremony.
The working theory for investigators is that a crack in one of the rails might have caused a derailment. Driver error has been ruled out. One of the two drivers died in the crash.
But the crash – and a series of separate incidents on Spain’s rail network in the days that followed – have raised doubts about the safety of the country’s railways.
