Theme: Transit

Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, resigned from his post and from frontline politics to try to save the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) campaign, badly damaged after the second fatal high-speed rail accident in nine months. The crash in Toledo province killed 69 people and came just nine months after a similar accident on the same high-speed line; the earlier one, on the Madrid-Seville line, left 46 dead. Spain is holding a snap general election on November 29, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez running for re-election; he brought the date forward following a wave of social protest over housing affordability. Puente also announced that he is giving up the socialist candidacy in Valladolid.

Óscar Puente resigned as Spain’s transport minister six days after the high-speed train collision that killed at least 69 people. He announced the decision in Congress, after giving evidence on the previous Wednesday’s disaster near Urda, south of Madrid, when a train smashed into the back of another that had stopped on the same line. Puente justified his departure by citing two serious accidents in less than a year, and mentioned January’s crash on the same line, which killed 46 people. He also withdrew his name from the candidate lists for the early legislative elections on November 29. According to Puente, the control center run by Adif, Spain’s state-owned rail infrastructure manager, allowed the AVE train to keep running even though its LZB automatic safety system had failed, and the train covered about 25 kilometers at more than 160 km/h before the collision. Around 200 people were injured in the crash, in addition to the 69 dead.

Somali pirates seized the Iranian fishing vessel Azini, carrying 23 people, and the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean warned the ship was approaching a commercial shipping lane and could become a floating base for further attacks. The Azini was hijacked on Thursday between Bandar Bayla and Hafun in northeastern Somalia, a Maritime Police Force officer from Puntland said on Sunday. According to the officer, 12 pirates seized the vessel, which was carrying 21 Iranian crew members and two Somali guards.

At least 68 people were killed and more than 100 injured when the Renfe train rear-ended a stationary Iryo train near the town of Urda, in Toledo province, on the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville, CNN reported. Twenty-four people died on the Renfe train and 44 on the Iryo train, both traveling between the two cities. Transportation Minister Óscar Puente said a computer failure affected the LZB safety system along 63 kilometers (40 miles) and automatically stopped all trains in the stretch; state rail manager ADIF took manual command and authorized the Renfe train to continue southbound despite the red light and with no speed restrictions, on an erroneous order from a controller. “There was a red signal prohibiting movement, yet the train was authorized to proceed,” Puente said. Audio released by El País shows the controller telling the AVE driver to resume “la marcha normal”, instead of the “marcha a vista” of 40 km/h set out in the protocol.

The death toll from the train collision in Toledo rose to at least 74, according to Spain’s transport ministry. The independent transport accident investigation authority AITAT published a preliminary report with the same figure, still provisional, and King Felipe VI expressed his sorrow over the “terrible accident” as he and Queen Letizia visited a hospital where injured victims were being treated.

The investigation into the train crash that killed at least 69 people near Toledo on Wednesday morning is examining why controllers told the driver of a Renfe AVE train to restart the journey after a signaling failure, according to The Guardian. Both trains had been halted when the signaling system failed; the driver of the state-owned train was told to restart and crashed into the train in front, run by the private operator Iryo. The instruction to proceed “con marcha normale” — under normal operations rather than at low speed — was described by Transport Minister Óscar Puente as an “inexplicable decision”.

The Renfe train traveling from Madrid to Seville, with 397 passengers on board, struck the rear of the stationary Iryo train, which carried 147, on Wednesday morning near Urda in the province of Toledo, according to the BBC. The collision killed at least 69 people and injured dozens, and Spain began three days of national mourning. Audio recordings between drivers and the control center released on Thursday appear to show the Renfe train was cleared to move even though the Iryo train had stalled about 25 km ahead; according to the transport minister, the Renfe train was ordered to proceed in error. Emergency crews continued operations at the site, with the death toll at 69, France 24 reported.

Oscar Puente told reporters in Madrid that the red signal was triggered by a computer communications failure, which automatically stopped traffic, and that an erroneous decision was then made to restart the Renfe train. At least 68 people died when a Spanish high-speed express slammed into a stationary train on Wednesday, Spain's second fatal rail crash this year and Europe's deadliest since 2013, according to France 24. Sánchez said the tragedy will be investigated and that the country will strengthen high-speed rail safety if needed to rebuild confidence in the system.

The provisional toll from the train collision in Urda rose to at least 68 dead, 24 in the AVE train and 44 in the Iryo train, according to Le Monde, citing the announcement by the president of the Castile-La Mancha region, Emiliano García-Page. Spain’s socialist leader decreed three days of national mourning, from Thursday to Saturday.

The failure of the line's main signaling system and the subsequent decision to resume service manually are at the centre of the early findings on the train collision in Toledo, which may have been triggered by human error, according to Spanish government sources, as reported by El País. Eight trains were brought to a halt in the area after the failure; the control center then switched to manual operation and instructed all trains to resume their journeys. Spain's transport minister pointed to an “inexplicable” decision as a possible cause of the collision, according to Xinhua.

The death toll from the train collision in Urda, in the province of Toledo, has risen to 64 dead and 58 injured, according to the local government's update on Wednesday. Forty of the dead were traveling on the Iryo train and 24 on the Renfe AVE, according to the same tally. The regional government of Castilla-La Mancha, the region where the crash happened, confirmed 64 dead, according to the BBC. Emergency services sources told El País that a Renfe AVE train hit the rear of an Iryo train stopped on the tracks, and two cars fell down an embankment.

A high-speed train slammed into the rear of another train that had stopped, derailing two cars and killing at least 30 people in central Spain, according to local media, NPR reported. Spanish authorities initially reported 10 deaths, and Esther Padilla, spokeswoman for the Castilla-La Mancha region, said “that number will surely rise,” according to NPR. The accident involved a train from state-owned RENFE and one from the private company IRYO.

At least 10 people are feared dead and many injured after two high-speed trains collided in Toledo province in central Spain, according to The Guardian. Services between Madrid and the southern region of Andalusia were suspended following a rear-end collision between two trains on Wednesday morning. A local government spokesperson told TVE that the death toll “will almost certainly rise.”

Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Cristiano Zanin ordered a two-hour extension, to 7pm Brasília time, of the closing of vote receiving in every polling station across Brazil. Hours earlier, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's coalition had asked the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to extend voting to 7pm in cities of at least nine states – São Paulo, Alagoas, Pernambuco, Roraima, Piauí, Paraíba, Pará, Paraná and Rio de Janeiro. In Salvador, checks by the Bahia Regional Electoral Court (TRE-BA) found that less than 50% of the bus fleet expected on weekdays was running.

A tanker was hit by an unknown projectile seven nautical miles off the Omani coast, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said, according to the Middle East Eye. The vessel, which was transiting outbound in the Strait of Hormuz, was able to continue its journey to the next port of call.

A passenger train running from Karachi to Peshawar derailed in Sher Shah, in Punjab, on Tuesday morning, killing four people and injuring 30, according to The Hindu, which cites police and a Pakistan Railways spokesman. Rescue teams recovered all four bodies and evacuated the injured from the train's 14 cars to hospital, according to The Hindu, which cites the railway spokesman.

Iran and Oman plan to notify an international body soon about the agreement on safe navigation corridors in the Strait of Hormuz, according to spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei, in a text by IRNA carried by TASS. Baghaei said the consultations between Tehran and Muscat were successful and that the parties reached an agreement on the geographical coordinates of the corridors.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs condemned on Tuesday, October 6, the attacks against commercial shipping, seafarers and civilian infrastructure, according to The Hindu. Eleven Indian crew members of the Panama-flagged vessel MT On Peace were injured after the ship was hit by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz. In the Black Sea, two crew members died and 11 were rescued on Monday, October 5, after a fire broke out on the commercial ship MV Royad Mammadov.

A preliminary Saudi investigation into the emergency landing of a Flydubai flight found that the captain was assaulted by his co-pilot, the Interior Ministry said. Flight FZ1073, from Dubai to Tel Aviv, diverted to Tabuk airport with 174 passengers and eight crew members on board and arrived “safely” at 9:45am local time (06:45 GMT).

An oil supertanker is in flames in the Strait of Hormuz after it was hit by a missile, Iran’s Fars news agency reported, in an account published by Middle East Eye. The attack took place eight kilometres off the coast of Oman, Fars reported, without attributing a perpetrator.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) opened an investigation into the attack on Flydubai flight FZ1073, on the Dubai–Tel Aviv route, according to G1, citing Agence France-Presse. The plane was carrying 174 passengers when it lost about 6,000 meters in two minutes after the confrontation in the cabin, according to El País. Passengers entered the cockpit, subdued the attacker and bound his hands.

Three Liberian-flagged oil tankers were struck by unknown projectiles while transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, according to Marisks, cited by Reuters. The vessels were moving through the strait with their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders turned off to avoid detection, according to a Marisks report released on Wednesday, and the tanker Al Ruwais had conducted a ship-to-ship transfer off Sohar, Oman, in late September to discharge diesel, according to Kpler data, according to Middle East Online.

Flydubai temporarily suspended flights to and from Israel until the investigation into flight FZ 1073 is completed, according to TASS. In a statement, the airline confirmed the suspension stands while the investigation continues, according to Middle East Eye. Flight FZ1073, which left Dubai for Tel Aviv, transmitted emergency signals and made a sharp descent before diverting to Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Airport in Tabuk, carrying 174 passengers, including 27 children, according to The Hindu. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the pilot a “true hero” and said that, despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster. Israeli news site Ynet, citing Israeli officials, reported that the co-pilot was an Omani national and was suspected of trying to crash the aircraft.

Five crew members of the Palau-flagged oil tanker MT Honour 25 were killed by pirates off the coast of Somalia, before security forces rescued the ship, according to Somali authorities. Among the dead were three from Pakistan, one from Myanmar and one from India. The ship, which was carrying 18,500 barrels of oil and had been seized on April 21, was freed in the rescue operation.

Erbil and Sulaimaniya airports in Iraq suspended flights with Iran starting Friday, September 25, 2026, Reuters reported. Together with Baghdad and Najaf, four Iraqi airports have halted operations with the country. The move responds to U.S. sanctions announced against any company doing business with Iranian airlines after September 23. In Najaf, flights were halted before dawn on Friday by a directive from the prime minister’s office, the airport director told Al Arabiya.

Kpler data cited by Reuters shows 22 tankers, mostly very large crude carriers, left the Strait of Hormuz in the week of September 13 carrying 42 million barrels of crude, with Saudi Arabia and Iraq accounting for 43% of the volume each. The VLCC Pinios was transferring 2 million barrels of Iraqi Basrah crude off Fujairah on Monday to another VLCC, the New Constant, which is expected to head to China. Houthi attacks on Aramco’s East-West pipeline have pushed the Saudi state firm to increase exports through the strait this month, and there have been no visible loadings from the Red Sea port of Yanbu since September 16.

Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell threefold over the weekend, according to Reuters as cited by TASS, and a Reuters analysis describes shuttle transfers keeping oil moving “at a high cost”. The Hindustan Times reports a shortage of tankers pushing fuel prices up.

Bamako suspends transit agreement with Algeria