Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente said on Tuesday that he will resign, following the latest deadly train crash on his watch.
The incident on Oct. 28, the second major Spanish train crash in just a year, occurred when two trains heading from Madrid to Andalusia collided.
In his resignation speech, published in full by Spanish news outlet El Diario on Nov. 3, Puente said he had decided to step down, but he didn’t say when he would leave the post.
“I made the decision about my future in the first few minutes after the tragedy occurred, as soon as I learned of it,” he said.
He added that a minister of transport in a country like Spain “cannot remain in office after two accidents of this magnitude in less than a year, however different they may be and regardless of whether or not I bear direct responsibility for them.”
Puente also announced that he would withdraw his candidacy for the Nov. 29 parliamentary election that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called.
The death toll remains at 69, and all have now been identified, according to a Nov. 3 post on X from Spain’s Integrated Data Centre (CID), which coordinates information on victims of the disaster.
The announcement follows mounting pressure for his resignation.
Hazte Oír, a Spanish conservative association that runs political petition campaigns, called for Puente’s resignation in a Nov. 1 post on X.
“Dozens of families are still searching for their missing loved ones after Urda,” it said.
Spain’s transport minister initially rejected calls for his resignation on Oct. 30.
“My duty now is not to focus on discussing whether I will remain in office, but on solving the problem, determining exactly what happened and providing clear explanations,” Puente said at a press conference on Oct. 30.
Before announcing his resignation, Puente presented a 30 million euro ($35 million) emergency aid package for victims of the Urda collision and their families.
According to the government’s announcement, families of those killed will receive a direct payment of 72,121 euros (about $81,000), alongside an advance insurance payment of the same amount.
Those injured will be eligible for payments ranging from 2,404 euros (about $2,700) to 84,141 euros (about $95,000), depending on the severity of their injuries.
Spain added that it plans to develop an AI system and digital twin of its railway network to identify anomalies and monitor communications between drivers and controllers.
The country’s Semaf train drivers’ union is now calling for a strike on Nov. 10 and 12, citing working conditions and safety concerns.
“It is incomprehensible and illogical that train drivers have to call for strike days to force those responsible for guaranteeing railway safety to make every effort and fulfill the commitments that guarantee a change in safety,” it said in a Nov. 2 statement.
In January, a major crash involving the same companies on the same line killed 46 people.
On Oct. 29, Spain’s independent technical accident investigation authority for railways, maritime transport, and civil aviation, AITAT, published its preliminary technical investigation document.
It said the collision occurred at an estimated speed of 100–120 mph, although the exact speed will not be known until investigators extract data from the on-board event recorder.
Investigators have started gathering information about the “degraded” operating conditions that began when the automatic train-protection system failed at 8:31 a.m., according to the document.
Once this system went down, trains switched to a system called lineside signaling blocking. In that mode, the control center and train drivers had to communicate by phone or radio to manage the situation.
The investigation into the cause of the collision remains ongoing.
