Officials estimate that at least 21 people were killed in high-speed train crash in southern Spain

BARCELONA — 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 21 people and injuring dozens more, the country’s transport minister said.

The tail end of an evening train between Malaga and Madrid with some 300 passengers went off the rails near Córdoba at 7:45 p.m. local time and slammed into a train with some 200 passengers coming from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to rail operator Adif.

Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente updated the death toll to 21 confirmed victims after midnight when he said that rescues had removed all the survivors. But Puente said there could be more victims still to be confirmed. Emergency services in Andalucia, the province where the accident happened, said it had recorded 25 people with severe injuries.

The regional Civil Protection chief, María Belén Moya Rojas, told Canal Sur that 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.

Salvador Jiménez, a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE, was on board one of the derailed trains and told the network by phone that “there was a moment when it felt like an earthquake and the train had indeed derailed.”

He said passengers used emergency hammers to break the windows, and that some had walked away without serious injuries. Videos from people on site show some people crawling out of windows at some points to escape the wreckage with carriages leaning at an angle.

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.