High-speed trains collide after one derails in southern Spain, killing at least 20
Madrid (AP): A high-speed train derailed, jumped onto the track in the opposite direction and slammed into an oncoming train Sunday in southern Spain, killing at least 20 people and injuring dozens more, officials said.
The evening train between Malaga and Madrid went off the rails near Cordoba and slammed into a train coming from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to rail operator Adif. The two trains were carrying around 500 passengers, according to media reports.
Antonio Sanz, regional health minister for the Andalusia region where the crash happened, said officials told him they fear the death toll may rise above 20.
Rescue operations are ongoing, he said, adding that 73 injured passengers have been taken to six different hospitals.
He said at least one passenger carriage had rolled down a four-metre slope.
Francisco Carmona, the firefighter chief of Cordoba, told Spanish national radio RNE that one of the trains was badly mangled, with at least four wagons off the rails.
The situation at the crash site “is very serious,” Sanz said. “We have a very difficult night ahead.”
The regional Civil Protection chief, Maria Belen Moya Rojas, told Canal Sur the accident happened in an area that is hard to reach.
Local people were taking blankets and water to the scene to help the victims, she said.
High-speed trains, running on an extensive national network, are a popular way to travel in Spain.
Spain's military emergency relief units joined the deployment of other rescue units. The Red Cross also provided support to healthcare officials.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X that she was following “the terrible news” from Cordoba.
“Tonight you are in my thoughts,” she wrote in Spanish.
ADIF said train services between Madrid and cities in Andalucia would not run Monday.
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Death toll due to fire in shopping mall in Pak’s Karachi rises to 14
Karachi (PTI): The death toll from a horrific fire in an old shopping mall in Pakistan’s Karachi has risen to 14 after rescue teams found eight more bodies from the building rubble.
The fire, which broke out on Saturday night at the Gul Plaza, a wholesale and retail market which had shops in the basement, mezzanine and three more floors, was brought under control by Sunday night.
Six bodies were found immediately after the fire broke out. They had died due to suffocation while dozens of injured were sent to hospitals. However, as the fire spread, rescue teams were unable to go in.
“Once the fire was doused, we didn’t wait for the cooling period and forcibly went in to rescue trapped people and we found eight more bodies, some badly charred,” Rescue 1122 Chief Operating Officer (COO) Abid Jalal said.
He told PTI on Monday morning that the fire had almost completely damaged the building with one back and one front portion collapsing because of weak pillars.
“The building structure has been weakened by the fire and we are still continuing to search for any remaining people because we could see more structural collapses,” Jalal said.
The market, which had around 1200 shops on all floors, has been one of Karachi’s landmarks since the early 1980s on the main M A Jinnah Road in the Saddar commercial area.
Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori, who came to the site this morning, told the media that 70 people were still trapped inside the building.
“We are extremely concerned and alarmed. Efforts are going on to find them but this is a national tragedy,” Tessori said.
South DIG Syed Asad Raza told the media that the casualties could increase because there was still a lot more space to be covered to find survivors.
He said an electrical short circuit might have caused the fire but said the cause has yet to be confirmed.
Gul Plaza is not the first shopping mall to catch fire in Karachi as in recent years there have been several incidents due to lack of safety and inadequate fire fighting systems and overloaded electrical systems and illegal constructions in Pakistan’s biggest city.
In 2024, a government audit found that in 266 shopping malls and commercial buildings located on major roads, only six had proper fire safety measures with 62 per cent lacking emergency exits and 70 per cent having substandard electrical systems.
In December 2024, in an adjacent building to Gul Plaza, also built in the early 1980s, fire broke out on two floors but was quickly brought under control.
In 2012, at least 259 people were killed when a fire broke out in a garment factory in Baldia town.
