Europe's modern history. Emergency crews worked through the night under powerful floodlights to cut open metal carriages in the search for victims, with many of those killed in the crash still to be identified.  Officials are investigating the cause of the disaster, which occurred when a train travelling from Madrid to Seville barreled into a stationary train on Wednesday morning. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the ‘whole of Spain is grieving’, adding that ‘lives have been shattered, families have been torn apart, the pain is immense’. Hundreds of personnel have been deployed to the disaster site to assist with recovery efforts, according to Spain's interior ministry, with drones and helicopters being used to find victims and remove rubble. The stationary train, run by private rail operator Iryo, had 147 passengers on board, and had stopped on the tracks because of a computer failure, according to Spain's transport minister Óscar Puente. He said that when there is a system failure, a 24-hour control centre in Madrid takes over, but it had made an ‘inexplicable’ decision to instruct the trains to move again, without any speed restrictions.

Audio recordings between train controllers in Madrid and the train drivers appear to show that one high-speed train was given clearance to move even though another up ahead had stalled. Iryo said its train was ‘struck from behind’ by another train, run by Spain's state-owned railway company, Renfe, which was carrying 397 passengers. The force of the crash caused several carriages to fall down an embankment. (BBC)