A night out to celebrate the summer solstice turned into tragedy in the Spanish coastal town of Castelldefels yesterday when 12 young people were killed by an express train.
Doctors were this morning still fighting to save the lives of three of those injured after a group of some 40 people heading for a beach party was struck by a high-speed train in the coastal town just south of Barcelona.
The victims had been going to one of the bonfire and beach parties that happen up and down the coast of Catalonia and the rest of Spain to mark the longest day of the year.
They had just got off another train at the station near the beach at Castelldefels and begun to cross the tracks rather than use an underground passageway or a footbridge at the station.
Fourteen of the injured were treated in local hospitals this morning. Most of the dead and injured were teenagers out to enjoy one of the biggest annual fiestas in Catalonia.
"We got off en masse and when we saw that the underpass was closed, we crossed the tracks," an eyewitness called Charly told El País newspaper.
A spokesman for Spain's rail infrastructure company ADIF denied that the underpass below the tracks had been locked.
"The train did not blow its whistle until it was already in the station and that gave us no time to get out of the way," said one of the survivors.
"What I do not understand is why the train did not stop after the accident," another of those who escaped said.
The force of the impact of the train on those crossing the tracks was such that rescue workers said they were having trouble putting together the body parts left at the scene.
Several of those injured had been standing on the platform and were hurt by flying bodies tossed aside by the train as it sped along a straight, flat stretch of track on the route from Alicante to Barcelona.
Castelldefels is a popular beach for people from nearby Barcelona and the rail station there had recently been renovated and remodelled.
Local mayor Joan Sau promised an investigation but blamed the group of people who chose to cross the tracks for the tragedy, saying they had been "imprudent".
"It was an awful accident," he said.
Source http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/24/spain-train-teenagers-killed
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