A high-speed train derailed and smashed into another oncoming train in southern Spain on Sunday, pushing the second train off the tracks in a collision that police sources confirmed to Reuters had killed at least 21 people.

The accident happened near Adamuz, in Cordoba province. So far, 21 people have been confirmed dead by police, with state broadcaster Television Espanola adding that 100 people had been injured, 25 seriously.

The driver of one of the trains, which was travelling from Madrid to Huelva, was among those who died, the TV station added.

“The Iryo 6189 Malaga – (to Madrid) train has derailed from the track at Adamuz, crashing onto the adjacent track. The (Madrid) to Huelva train which was travelling on the adjacent track has also derailed,” said Adif, which runs the rail network, in a social media post.

Adif said the accident happened at 6:40pm (1740 GMT), about 10 minutes after the Iryo train left Cordoba heading towards Madrid.

Iryo is a private rail operator, majority-owned by Italian state-controlled railway group Ferrovie dello Stato. The train involved was a Freccia 1000 train which was travelling between Malaga and Madrid, a spokesperson for Ferrovie dello Stato said.

The company said in a statement that it deeply regretted what had happened and had activated all emergency protocols to work closely with the relevant authorities to manage the situation.

The second train was operated by Renfe, which also did not respond to a request for comment.

Adif has suspended all rail services between Madrid and Andalusia.

Horrific scene

The Iryo train had more than 300 passengers on board, while the Renfe train had around 100.

Paco Carmona, Cordoba fire chief, told TVE the first train heading to Madrid from Malaga had been evacuated.

The other train’s carriages were badly damaged, he said, with twisted metal and seats. “There are still people trapped. We don’t know how many people have died and the operation is concentrating on getting people out of areas which are very narrow,” he said. “We have to remove the bodies to reach anyone who is still alive. It is proving to be a complicated task.”

Transport Minister Oscar Puente said he was following events from rail operator Adif’s headquarters in Madrid.

“The latest information is very serious,” he posted on X. “The impact was terrible, causing the first two carriages of the Renfe train to be thrown off the track. The number of victims cannot be confirmed at this time. The most important thing now is to help the victims.”

The mayor of Adamuz, Rafael Moreno, told El Pais newspaper that he had been among the first to arrive at the scene of the accident alongside the local police and saw what he believed to be a badly lacerated body several metres from the accident site.

“The scene is horrific,” he said. “I don’t think they were on the same track, but it’s not clear. Now the mayors and residents of the area are focused on helping the passengers.”

Calls for medics

Images on local television showed a reception centre set up for passengers in the town of Adamuz, population 5,000, with locals coming and going with food and blankets amid nighttime temperatures of around 42 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius).

A woman named Carmen posted on X that she had been on board the Iryo train to Madrid. “Ten minutes after departing (from Cordoba) the train started to shake a lot, and it derailed from coach 6 behind us. The lights went out.”

Footage posted by another Iryo train passenger, also on X, showed an Iryo staffer in a fluorescent jacket instructing passengers to remain in their seats in the darkened carriages, and those with first aid training to keep watch over fellow passengers. He also urged people to maintain mobile phone batteries to be able to use their torches when they disembarked.

Salvador Jimenez, a journalist for RTVE who was on board the Iryo train, shared images showing the nose of the rear carriage of the train lying on its side, with evacuated passengers sitting on the side of the carriage facing upwards.

Jimenez told TVE by phone from beside the stricken trains that passengers had used emergency hammers to smash the windows and climb out, and they had seen two people taken out of the overturned carriages on stretchers.

“There’s a certain uncertainty about when we’ll get to Madrid, where we’ll spend the night, we’ve had no message from the train company yet,” he said. “It’s very cold but here we are.”

Tajikistan officials on Sunday said they “neutralised” four “terrorists” who crossed over from neighbouring Afghanistan in an area where deadly incidents have been on the rise in recent weeks, state media reported.

Tajikistan, in Central Asia, shares a mountainous border with Afghanistan and has had tense relations with the Afghan Taliban regime.

According to Tajik security services cited by the state-owned Khovar news agency, “four terrorists were neutralised” after they refused to put down arms in the southern Khatlon region.

Tajik authorities have reported at least five deadly incidents on the mountainous border, which is some 1,350 kilometres (840 miles) long, since November.

An AFP count using official data found that 16 people have been killed in total.

These include Tajik border guards, Chinese workers and what Dushanbe calls “smugglers” and “terrorists”.

After attacks on Chinese nationals in November, Tajik authorities urged the Afghan Taliban regime to take measures to prevent destabilisation of the volatile border region, where drug traffickers and militant groups are active.

Unlike other Central Asian leaders who are strengthening ties with the Taliban, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon — in power since 1992 — openly criticises Afghanistan’s authorities.

He has urged the Taliban to respect the rights of ethnic Tajiks, estimated to represent around a quarter of Afghanistan´s population.

But Tajikistan is also taking steps towards cooperation with Kabul, through electricity supplies, the opening of border markets and meetings between Taliban and local Tajik officials.

Relations between the two nations took a hit after five Chinese nationals were killed, and several were wounded in two separate attacks along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan in late November and early December.

According to a UN report in December, a militant group, Jamaat Ansarullah, “has fighters spread across different regions of Afghanistan” with a primary goal “to destabilise the situation in Tajikistan.”

Dushanbe has previously voiced concerns about the presence in Afghanistan of members of Daesh in Khorasan.

• Italy’s PM calls Trump’s tariffs threats “mistake”.
• Ireland says Trump’s stance deeply regrettable.
• Macron asks EU to activate “anti-coercion instrument”.
  

The countries targeted by US President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs over their opposition to his designs on Greenland will “stand united” in their response, they said in a joint statement Sunday.

“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden said.

“We will continue to stand united and coordinated in our response. We are committed to upholding our sovereignty,” they said.

Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister earlier described the tariffs being threatened by Trump over European allies’ stance on Greenland as “completely unacceptable”.

The decision “is completely unacceptable and deeply regrettable,” said Helen McEntee”.

“Ireland has been crystal clear that the future of Greenland is a matter to be determined by Denmark and by the Greenlandic people, in line with well-established democratic principles and international law,” she added.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron’s team said that he will ask the European Union to activate its powerful “anti-coercion instrument” if the US imposes tariffs in the standoff over Greenland.

The bloc’s weapon — never used before and dubbed its trade “bazooka” — allows for curbing imports of goods and services, and has been invoked as a way to push back over tech and trade, and now the Danish territory the US president wants to acquire.

Italy’s prime minister called Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on opponents of his plan to seize Greenland a “mistake”, adding she had told him her views.

“I believe that imposing new sanctions today would be a mistake,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told journalists during a trip to Seoul.

“I spoke to Donald Trump a few hours ago and told him what I think, and I spoke to the Nato secretary general, who confirmed that Nato is beginning to work on this issue.”

However, the far-right prime minister — a Trump ally in Europe — sought to downplay the conflict, telling journalists “there has been a problem of understanding and communication” between Europe and the US related to the Arctic island.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25% on all goods sent to the US from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland over their objections to his moves.

Meloni said it was up to Nato to take an active role in the growing crisis.

“Nato is the place where we must try to organise together deterrents against interference that may be hostile in a territory that is clearly strategic, and I believe that the fact that Nato has begun to work on this is a good initiative,” she told reporters.

Meloni said that “from the American point of view, the message that had come from this side of the Atlantic was not clear”.

“It seems to me that the risk is that the initiatives of some European countries were interpreted as anti-American, which was clearly not the intention.”

Meloni did not specify to what exactly she was referring.

Trump claims the United States needs Greenland for its national security.