Police put the driver of a Spanish train under investigation on Thursday (July 25) after at least 78 people died when it hit a sharp bend at speed and derailed near the northern city of Santiago de Compostela, in one of Europe's worse rail disasters.

Dramatic video footage from a security camera outside the north-western city showed the train, with 247 people on board, careering into a wall at the side of the track as carriages jack-knifed and the engine overturned.

The Galicia government said the train had two drivers and one was in hospital but it was not immediately clear which driver was under investigation.

Newspaper reports cited witnesses as saying driver Francisco Jose Garzon,who helped rescue victims, had shouted: "I've derailed! What do I do?" into a phone.

El Pais said one of the drivers was trapped in his cabin and told the railway station by radio that the train entered the bend at 190 kilometres per hour (120 mph).

In what one local official described as a scene from hell, bodies covered in blankets lay strewn around the train track next to overturned carriages as smoke billowed from the wreckage and bloodied passengers staggered away.

Cranes were still pulling out mangled debris on Thursday morning, 12 hours after the crash. Emergency workers had stopped their search for survivors, the court spokeswoman said.

Presented by Adam Justice

Read more: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/spain-train-crash-driver-speed-santiago-compostela-494718