Broken 'Fishplate' Killed 40 in Spain After Union Warned Track Operator of 'Severe Wear' Months Before

A broken rail joint has emerged as the likely cause of Spain's deadliest train crash in over a decade, with investigators now facing uncomfortable questions about warnings that went ignored for months.

Technicians examining the track near Adamuz in Cordoba province found visible wear on the connection between rail sections, a component called a fishplate that they believe had been deteriorating long before Sunday's disaster, according to Reuters. The damage created a gap that grew wider with every passing train.

Forty people are now confirmed dead. Fifteen more remain in critical condition.

August Letter Flagged 'Severe Wear and Tear'

The crash site wasn't unknown to railway authorities. According to The Independent, train drivers' union SEMAF wrote to state rail operator ADIF back in August, warning of severe problems on high-speed lines across the country, including the very stretch where two trains collided on Sunday night.

The letter reportedly complained of potholes and bumps causing frequent breakdowns. Overhead power line imbalances were damaging trains. Drivers had reported these issues 'daily', the union said, but nothing was done.

ADIF has not commented on the allegations. Transport Minister Oscar Puente, visibly shaken at a Monday press conference, called the derailment 'truly strange' given the track had been renovated just eight months earlier for €700 million ($814 million/£608 million).

Twenty Seconds Between Derailment and Impact

The collision happened at 7:45 p.m. on 18 January, about 360 kilometres south of Madrid. An Iryo service carrying around 300 passengers from Malaga was approaching Cordoba when its rear carriages struck the gap in the rails. The eighth carriage derailed first, dragging the seventh and sixth off with it, Reuters reported.

Then came the Renfe train from Madrid, heading for Huelva with 187 passengers aboard.

Twenty seconds separated the derailment from impact. Not enough time to trigger automatic brakes. The Renfe train slammed into the wreckage at 205 kph, sending its first two carriages tumbling down a four-metre embankment. That's where most of the dead were found. The 27-year-old Renfe driver was among them.

'Bodies Hundreds of Metres Away'

Andalusian regional president Juanma Moreno stood at the crash site on Monday morning and struggled to describe what he saw. 'When you look at this mass of twisted iron, you see the violence of the impact,' he said, according to Al Jazeera. 'We have found bodies hundreds of metres away.'

Rescue crews worked through the night with hydraulic cutters. By morning, 292 people had been treated for injuries. One survivor, 26-year-old Ana Garcia Aranda, told Reuters the train tipped to one side, and then everything went dark. 'All I heard was screams.'

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cancelled his Davos trip and declared three days of national mourning. 'Today is a day of pain for all of Spain,' he said in Adamuz, where locals had spent the night helping ferry the wounded to safety.

Renfe chief Alvaro Fernandez Heredia said human error was 'practically ruled out'. Both trains were travelling well under the 250 kph speed limit. The Iryo service, a Frecciarossa 1000 built by Hitachi Rail-Bombardier, was less than four years old and had passed its routine inspection just three days before the crash. Hitachi found no anomalies.

Spain operates Europe's largest high-speed rail network, with more than 3,900 kilometres of track. Sunday's crash is its worst since 80 died at Santiago de Compostela in 2013, and the first fatal accident on the high-speed network since services began in 1992. Puente warned the investigation could take a month. Families are still providing DNA samples to help identify the dead.