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Today

Spanish train crash driver held

Police say they have detained the driver of the train that crashed in north-western Spain and killed 78 people.

Francisco Jose Garzon Amo was officially detained in the hospital where he is recovering, Galicia region National Police Chief Jaime Iglesias says.

Sr Iglesias said that Garzon Amo would be questioned “as a suspect for a crime linked to the cause of the accident”.

He says the driver is being guarded by police and cannot yet testify because of his medical condition.

He did not have details of the medical condition but said it could delay the driver’s statement. Police scientists examining the remains of those killed in the disaster lowered the death count from 80 people to 78 and said the count could change as they continue their work identifying body parts and associating them with others.

Investigators, meanwhile, have taken possession of the “black boxes” of the train, court spokeswoman Maria Pardo Rios said. The boxes record train’s trip data, including speed and distances and braking and are similar to flight recorders for aircraft.

The revised death toll came as forensic scientists matched body parts with each other at a makeshift morgue set up in a sports arena in Santiago de Compostela, in the north-western Galicia region, where the train crashed on Wednesday just as it was entering the outskirts of the city, said Antonio de Amo, the police chief in charge of the scientific service for Spain’s National Police. Mr De Amo said police are still working to identify what they believe are the remains of six people.

Analysis will be performed to determine why the train was travelling far above the speed limit when it crashed near a station in Santiago de Compostela, Ms Rios said. She declined comment on how long the analysis will take.

An injured American passenger said he saw on a TV monitor screen inside his car that the train was traveling 194 kph (121 mph) seconds before the crash – far above the 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit on the curve where it derailed.

Stephen Ward, 18-year-old Mormon missionary from Utah, said he was writing in his journal when he looked up at the monitor and saw the train’s speed. Then, he said, “the train lifted up off the track. It was like a roller coaster.”

Seconds later, Ward remembered, a backpack fell from the rack above him and he felt the train fly off the track. That was his last memory before he blacked out.

When Ward woke up, someone was helping him walk out of his train car and to crawl out of a ditch where the car had toppled over.

He thought he was dreaming for 30 seconds until he felt his blood-drenched face and noticed the scene around him.

“Everyone was covered in blood. There was smoke coming up off the train,” he said. “There was a lot of crying, a lot of screaming. There were plenty of dead bodies. It was quite gruesome.”

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