Two high-speed trains collided Wednesday morning on the Madrid-to-Seville line near the town of Urda, in Spain's Castilla-La Mancha region, killing at least 69 people according to the BBC. The Guardian reported at least 68 dead and dozens more injured. The crash occurred at 8:53 a.m. local time between the municipalities of Mora and Orgaz, about 140 kilometers south of Madrid, when a state-operated Renfe train struck the back of a stationary train run by the private company Iryo. Some carriages fell down an embankment, and all traffic on the line was halted, with Renfe suspending services between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia.

Transport Minister Óscar Puente said a computer failure at about 8:30 a.m. initially halted six moving trains, including the two that later collided. He said the rail control center, which takes over in the event of a system failure, decided to let the trains move again without speed restrictions, a decision he described as made "under inexplicable circumstances." Iryo said its train was struck from behind by a Renfe train "due to causes that are still unknown."

Audio recordings obtained by Spanish media appear to show a controller at the infrastructure company Adif clearing one train to move at 8:36 a.m., even though another train about 25 kilometers ahead had stalled. In one recording, the controller tells the Renfe driver to disconnect and reconnect the LZB speed-monitoring system and proceed under the Lateral Signalling Block, a backup system, "at normal speed." The driver asks, "At normal speed?" and the controller answers, "Yes." Under normal protocols, a driver in that situation would be expected to travel at no more than 40 km/h by line of sight, rather than at normal speed on a track designed for up to 200 km/h. In a second recording, the Iryo driver reports the train is stationary in front of the entry signal at Urda.

Survivors described scenes of severe injury. Josimar Medina, a 37-year-old Peruvian tourist in the seventh carriage of the Renfe train, said he was thrown through the air and saw people with severe injuries, and he helped an injured young American man to safety. Fredrich and Arabella Barilea, a couple from the Philippines living in Dubai who were on the Iryo train, said passengers shouted warnings that another train could hit and fled the wreckage. Urda became an emergency response hub, with a local sports center used as a triage post and emergency vehicles arriving from Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid.

Officials have begun visiting the area. Interior Minister Fernando Grande Marlaska and Castilla-La Mancha regional president Emiliano García-Page visited the emergency coordination center near the site, and opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo arrived later. The cause remains under investigation, with attention focused on the control center's decision to restore normal-speed movement after the system failure and on the signalling systems involved. The death toll could change as rescue and recovery work continues.