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The railway accident in Toledo, Spain: Testimony from a Romanian present at the incident / He helped evacuate nearly 200 passengers

Sanziana Georgescu

29 October 2026, 07:37

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Ioan Dunca, a Romanian who has been living in Spain for approximately 30 years, was among the first people to intervene after the collision between two high-speed trains, which occurred on Wednesday morning in the province of Toledo. The accident took place shortly after 09:00 local time, on the railway line between Los Yébenes and Urda, which connects Madrid to Andalusia.

Dunca was behind the wheel, near the railway, when he noticed a train stopped on the tracks. Approximately ten minutes after the train stopped, it was hit from behind by a second train. The Romanian alerted the emergency services, then headed toward the accident site, where he heard the cries of the injured passengers.

Because the protective fence blocked access to the nearby road, Dunca cut through the metal mesh and created an opening through which nearly 200 people were able to leave the track embankment. Later, he used his own car to transport injured people to medical points in the area.

The collision occurred between a Renfe train and an Iryo train, which had remained stopped on the line. Spain's Minister of Transport stated that the Renfe train may have been allowed to continue moving after a red signal was activated, in the context of a malfunction in the communications IT system. Renfe claims that the driver followed the instructions he received. The investigation report is expected to establish responsibility.

Context: a few hours before the field interventions, the investigation began following the failure of the signaling system and repeated accidents on the same route

In the initial reports about the collision in the province of Toledo, authorities spoke of a possible mechanism linked to “human error” and the malfunctioning of the LZB signaling system, which reportedly failed around 08:30. The failure triggered the automatic stopping of six trains in the area, and a few minutes later the control center reportedly authorized a Renfe train to resume its journey, a decision described by the Transport Minister as “inexplicable”.

At the same time, the incident was viewed in the context of previous tragedies on the same line: nine months earlier, another railway accident had occurred, resulting in 46 deaths. As search and rescue operations continued, the number of victims was progressively updated, from at least 10 deaths in the first hours, to at least 39, and later to at least 68.