Politics
Two high-speed trains derail in Spain, 21 people killed
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.”
- Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jet crashes during training.
- Jet went missing after taking off from Jorhat airbase.
- Dead pilots identified as Sq Ldr Anuj, Flight Lieutenant Duragkar.
Two pilots from the Indian Air Force (IAF) were killed after a Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jet crashed in India’s northeastern state of Assam, NDTV reported, citing officials.
The Indian Air Force said on Friday that a fighter jet, which was on a training mission, crashed in the northeast Indian state of Assam.
“The Su-30MKI, which was on a training mission, crashed in the area of Karbi Anglong, Assam, approx 60 km from Jorhat,” the Indian Air Force said on X.
The aircraft had gone missing shortly after taking off from the Jorhat airbase. Communication with the Russian-origin fighter jet was lost at 7:42pm, according to officials.
The crash occurred in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district, around 60 kilometres from the airbase. The aircraft reportedly went down in a remote hilly area.
The IAF identified the deceased pilots as Squadron Leader Anuj and Flight Lieutenant Purvesh Duragkar.
“All personnel of the IAF express sincere condolences, and stand firmly with the bereaved family in this time of grief,” the Air Force said in a post on X.
Local residents in the area said they heard a loud explosion from a nearby hill and saw a ball of fire shortly afterwards.
India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said he was “deeply saddened” by the loss of the two pilots in the “tragic” crash.
The Sukhoi Su-30MKI is a two-seater, long-range fighter aircraft developed by Russian manufacturer Sukhoi. It is produced under licence in India by state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the IAF.
The aircraft was first inducted into the Indian Air Force in 1997, and the service currently operates a fleet of more than 260 Su-30MKI jets.
Similar incidents have occurred in recent years. A Sukhoi fighter jet crashed in Nashik, Maharashtra, in June 2024, while another Su-30 aircraft crashed in January 2023 shortly after taking off from the Gwalior airbase in Madhya Pradesh.
TEHRAN: The head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, has said that recent US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran have damaged more than 3,000 civilian properties, according to reports cited by Al Jazeera.
Kolivand stated that the strikes affected 3,643 civilian locations, including 3,090 residential homes, highlighting the significant impact on populated urban areas.
Civilian Infrastructure Hit
According to the Red Crescent chief, the attacks also caused damage to several public and service facilities, including:
528 commercial and service centres
14 healthcare and pharmaceutical facilities
9 Red Crescent sites
Officials said the majority of the destruction occurred in densely populated residential areas, raising humanitarian concerns.
Growing Humanitarian Impact
The latest figures underscore the expanding civilian toll as the conflict involving Iran, the United States, and Israel continues to intensify.
Emergency teams from the Iranian Red Crescent are currently involved in rescue, relief and medical operations in affected areas.
Authorities have not yet released updated casualty figures but say humanitarian agencies are continuing to assess the full extent of the damage.
- Hegseth acknowledges US military was investigating incident.
- Press Secy Leavitt says Iran continues to targets civilians, children.
- Rubio says US would not deliberately target a school.
US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reached a final conclusion or completed their investigation, two US officials told Reuters.
Reuters was unable to determine more details about the investigation, including what evidence contributed to the tentative assessment, what type of munition was used, who was responsible or why the US might have struck the school.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday acknowledged the US military was investigating the incident.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, did not rule out the possibility that new evidence could emerge that absolves the US of responsibility and points to another responsible party in the incident.
Reuters could not determine how much longer the investigation would last or what evidence US investigators are seeking before the assessment can be completed.
The White House did not directly comment on the investigation, but press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Reuters, “While the Department of War is currently investigating this matter, the Iranian regime targets civilians and children, not the United States of America.”
Asked about the incident during a news briefing on Wednesday, Hegseth said: “We’re investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets. But we’re taking a look and investigating that.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that the United States would not deliberately target a school.
“The Department of War would be investigating that if that was our strike, and I would refer your question to them,” Rubio said.
Israeli and US forces have until now divided their attacks in Iran both geographically and by target type, a senior Israeli official and a source with direct knowledge of the joint planning said. While Israel was striking missile launch sites in western Iran, the United States was attacking such targets, as well as naval ones, in the south.
The UN human rights office, without saying who it believed was responsible for the strike on the school, called on Tuesday for an investigation.
“The onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it,” UN human rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a press briefing in Geneva.
Images of the girls’ funeral on Tuesday were shown on Iranian state television. Their small coffins were draped with Iranian flags and passed from a truck across a large crowd towards the grave site.
Deliberately attacking a school, hospital, or any other civilian structure would likely be a war crime under international humanitarian law.
If a US role were to be confirmed, the strike would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of U.S. conflicts in the Middle East.
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