Moment high-speed passenger train derails and crashes
Exclusive Footage: Spain high speed train crashes near Santiago de Compostela
video footage from a security camera shows the train careering into a concrete wall as it came off the rails on the bend, before flipping onto its side and hurtling down the railway line with its terrified passengers on board.
At least 80 people have been killed and up to 140 injured, including a Briton, in one of Spain's worst rail disasters.
It is feared the death toll could rise as passengers were still being pulled from the smouldering wreckage in the north-western region of Galicia today. Many of those on board were thought to be travelling to a religious festival in nearby city Santiago de Compostela, the site of a Catholic pilgrimage.
The train, heading from Madrid to the port city of Ferrol, derailed at around 8.40pm yesterday.
Carnage: the train derailed on a curve in a scene that was said to be 'Dante-esque' Reports suggested it was travelling at almost three times the
speed limit when it came off the tracks. Rescue teams battled through the night to free passengers trapped inside the carriages, several of which caught fire.
Bodies covered in blankets lay next to the overturned carriages as smoke billowed from the wreckage.
Firemen clambered over the twisted metal trying to get survivors out through the windows.
At least six of the 13 carriages rolled over. One was thrown five metres from the track and landed on the other side of a wall beside houses.
Alberto Nunez Feijoo, president of the Galicia regional government, said: "The scene is shocking."
There were 218 passengers on board the train when it jumped the tracks on what officials described as "a difficult curve" on the outskirts of Santiago.
Search: rescue workers sift through debris and sort out luggage amongst the wreckage "The train started flipping over, over and over, and carriages
ended up on top of others," one passenger said. Another, Ricardo Montesco, said: "It was going so quickly. It seems that on a curve the train started to twist, and the wagons piled up one on top of the other.
"A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realised the train was burning. I was in the second wagon and there was fire... I saw corpses."
The Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that the train had been travelling at nearly 140mph (220kph) in an urban zone with a speed limit of just 50mph (80kph).
There was no speculation by officials about the possibility of terrorism, like the commuter train bombings in Madrid in 2004 that killed 191 people. The national rail company Renfe and state-owned Adif, in charge of the tracks, have started an investigation into the cause of the derailment.
