Spanish authorities identify all 69 victims of train crash

MADRID: Spanish authorities said on Monday they had identified all 69 people killed in last week's high-speed train collision after confirming the identities of three more victims.

Wednesday's disaster – one of Europe's deadliest rail accidents this century – has seen victims' relatives endure an agonising wait as forensics teams identify the dead, sometimes from individual body parts.

A legal body set up to handle the identification work, made up of police and forensics experts, announced in a statement late on Monday the three latest confirmed victims – two Australians and a Japanese citizen.

The victims include 54 Spanish nationals and 15 foreigners – four US citizens, two Australians, two Japanese and one each from Argentina, Canada, France, Mexico, Portugal, Tunisia and the Czech Republic.

The accident was Spain's second high-speed train collision this year and raised fresh questions about the country's rail safety, after a crash in the southern region of Andalusia in January killed 46 people.

The latest disaster struck when a service by state operator Renfe ploughed into the back of a stationary train belonging to Spanish company Iryo outside the central village of Urda, around 130km south of Madrid.

The failure of an automatic safety system halted all trains on a 63km stretch of track, but a control centre authorised the Renfe service to resume its journey while the other train was still.

The tragedy came one month before a Nov 29 general election in which Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez will seek to overcome unfavourable polls and extend his eight-year premiership.--AFP