ÓSCAR PUENTE REJECTS CALLS TO RESIGN AFTER SPAIN TRAIN CRASH

Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, said on Friday that he would not resign after two high-speed trains collided on the Madrid–Seville line. The collision on Wednesday killed at least 69 people and injured nearly 150. At a press conference in Madrid, Puente said he had “nothing to hide”. “My duty right now is not to talk about whether I should remain in my position, but to resolve the problem,” he said. Spain declared three days of mourning.

A computer failure caused the collision. Families awaited confirmation of the identities of those killed. The conservative People’s Party and trade union CSIF called for Puente to resign. Demonstrators also protested outside the transport ministry on Wednesday night. Another high-speed train crash in Córdoba earlier this year killed 46 people.

Puente said he would seek answers to questions about the disaster. “The easy thing for me would be to leave, but neither that fits with my character nor is it what the Prime Minister has asked me to do,” he said. He said he felt “immense pain and immense sadness for the victims and their relatives” but could not let that pain “paralyse me”. Opposition parties have demanded his resignation from Pedro Sánchez’s socialist-led government, while the crash has raised questions about rail safety and government competence.