The death toll of a fatal train crash in Spain which killed 68 people is expected to rise as questions remain over the technical room 'error' which caused the smash.
Three carriages were derailed when a train travelling from Madrid to Seville collided with a stationary one on the same route near the city of Toledo shortly before 9am yesterday.
It left 68 people dead and more than 100 injured in scenes described as 'apocalyptic' by surviving passengers, who said the damage was 'as if a bomb had been planted'.
Spain's Transport Minister Oscar Puente told reporters an 'inexplicable' order from a central command unit was to blame after a security system failed.
All trains on a stretch of 63km had been drawn to a halt due to the computer malfunction, but central command told a Renfe train to restart its journey without any speed restrictions.
A little more than 20 minutes later at 8.53am, it smashed into the back of the stationary Iryo train 100 miles south of Madrid, leaving carriages totally destroyed and derailed. It was reported that the locomotive was capable of travelling at speeds of 185mph.
Mr Puente said the control centre 'had more than enough time to verify the error, and they did not fix it.'
He added: 'The decision to resume traffic, while that system had not been restored, belongs to the control centre.'
Sixty-eight people died and more than 100 suffered injuries on Wednesday when two trains collided in Spain
The crash occurred shortly before 9am near the city of Toledo
The tragedy came less than a year after 46 people died in January when a train jumped the track and hit an incoming one in southern Spain.
That smash raised widespread concern about the safety of the nation's railways, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declaring the situation 'not acceptable' following Wednesday's incident.
He said Spain would observe three days of mourning beginning today, while opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo suspended campaigning but said: 'Spain has the right to know what is going on with its infrastructure.'
Surviving passengers described horrific scenes following the crash yesterday morning.
Sebastian Herrero, 46, who was travelling on the Iryo train, said he was 'thrown against the seats' when the trains collided, and described how he was 'in the air for about four or five seconds', which felt like 'a lifetime'.
He added: 'There are three carriages of the Iryo, the three at the end, from which they keep taking people out and putting sheets on them. Corpses. It's apocalyptic.
'In those carriages, I find it very hard to believe there are any living people. It's a twisted mass of metal. It's as if they had planted a bomb.'
A survivor named Jesus said: 'I saw a boy with an amputated arm walking away from the wreckage.'
Architect Joaquín Torres described the death of a horrifically injured fellow passenger.
He said: 'I went up to a woman who said she was cold... she died in my arms. It was horrible, [she was] without legs, without arms.'
One carriage caught fire and smoke was still pouring from the mangled wreckage as emergency responders reached the scene. It emerged last night that Fatima Banez, Spain's former employment minister, was among the dead.
Horrifying photographs showed a carriage impaled on a long steel rail that was forced through the floor and out of the roof.
Rail operator Adif said the incident occurred between the towns of Mora and Orgaz
A general view showing the derailed carriages of the two high-speed trains as emergency services arrive at the scene
Emergency services are seen at the site of a train collision between a high speed Renfe AVE train and Iryo train around 150kms south of Madrid between Urda and Los Yebenes in the province of Toledo
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is pictured at the scene of the crash
Others showed passengers climbing out of twisted, broken carriages. David Gomez, a construction worker, was on a job with his brother and a colleague nearby when they heard the crash and ran to help.
'People were trying to get out through the windows. We cut through some fences to access the area and treated people with first-aid kits we brought,' he said. 'As I was trying to pull a young woman out, there was a piece of a leg.'
One survivor said his carriage was 'completely wrecked', adding: 'The impact was tremendous.
'The carriage was completely destroyed. A man fell on top of me, but we were able to help him. It was a very dramatic scene.'
Another passenger said she was left 'spinning on the floor' by the impact.
Miguel, a passenger travelling with colleagues in the rear car of one of the trains, said: 'We heard a massive roar... that went on for ten seconds, as if the train were about to derail.
'Through the right-hand window, we could see a wrecked train – it must have been the other one.'
The crash came the day before a 24-hour work stoppage at Renfe by Spain's biggest train drivers' union.
Earlier this month, the union said: 'Our goal is to change the system and make it safer. We demand real and definitive technical solutions to the safety and reliability issues that have long plagued our rolling stock.'
Speaking from the crash site, Prime Minister Sanchez said: 'The whole of Spain is grieving,' before adding that the authorities would determine the cause of the accident and take action if wrongdoing is uncovered.
He added: 'If there has been negligence, it will be known.'
