At 8.54am on 28 October 2026, a Renfe AVE high-speed train ran into the back of a stationary Iryo service at kilometre 118 of the Madrid–Seville line, near the village of Urda, in the province of Toledo. Sixty-nine people were killed and more than a hundred injured.
Each of those figures was a journey with a purpose: a wedding, a holiday given as a gift, a newborn nephew, a final day at work. These are some of those lives.
Spain Expat Press Editorial Team
Ana Avilés Uruñuela, 68: ‘No wedding without my mother-in-law’
A native of Madrid, she was in seat 18B of carriage 7. She was travelling to Seville to be at her daughter Ana Román’s side for her wedding, set for Saturday 31 October.
When she was reported missing, the family called off the ceremony. Curro, her daughter’s fiancé, put it simply: there would be no wedding without his mother-in-law.
Her daughter reported her missing that same night and gave DNA samples. Days later, the Guardia Civil matched them to the remains recovered from the wreckage and confirmed her death.
Eleuterio del Olmo, ‘Lute’, 50: a reconciliation just in time
A father of two from El Casar, in Guadalajara, he was in seat 17C of carriage 7.
His daughter Sandra had not seen him for a year. Since he had left the family home, something between them had broken; in the divorce, she had sided with her mother. Then they agreed to meet in a café. She arrived nervous, and they spoke only of everyday things. But from that day they called and messaged more often, and both found a peace they had lacked.
They met three more times. The last was on the night of 27 October, when he pulled up outside her house, headlights on, and left a suitcase with her to keep until he returned. The next morning he boarded the AVE.
Sandra has told her story to El País. What it leaves behind is clear: though he was taken far too soon, father and daughter made their peace in time.
For four days his family searched with what little they had — a photograph, a carriage and seat number, and a plain description: beard, short hair. Neighbours in El Casar held a minute’s silence outside the town hall, and the local football club of Fuente El Saz remembered him as a fine man and a good friend.
Antonio Acedo, 36, and Daniel Cabañas, 31: the two drivers who stayed at the controls
Two men were in the cab of the AVE. Antonio Acedo, the driver in charge, came from Móstoles and from a railway family: his father had been a train driver, his grandfather an electrician with Renfe. His wife, herself a train driver, is expecting their first child. They had breakfast together that morning.
Beside him sat Daniel Cabañas, from Leganés. Much of the press described him as a trainee, but he was no novice: he had driven commuter trains for years and was qualifying for high-speed service. He had previously maintained AVE trains at the Santa Catalina depot in Madrid. He was a former pupil of the Salesian school at Atocha, which has set up a small altar to him at the foot of a statue of Don Bosco, and a nephew of Bishop Rafael Cob, who serves in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
That morning the two shared a coffee with their instructor, Álvaro Aznar, and joked about what the day’s ‘roulette’ of faults might bring. None of them could have known.
Early findings suggest Antonio was given false information: a green signal told him the line was clear, although the Iryo train stood ahead. According to colleagues, he braked as hard as he could the moment he saw it. The two men were in the most exposed part of the train, its leading end, which took the full force of the collision. The impact came at between 160 and 200 km/h, driving the front of the AVE into the rear carriage of the Iryo.
Colleagues, friends and much of the press remember them as heroes: two men who, in their final seconds, did their job to the end in an effort to soften the blow and spare as many passengers as they could. A friend of Antonio’s said he had done his work well until the very last minute, and paid tribute to Daniel’s professionalism too. The data recorders, now held by the Guardia Civil, will show how much they managed to brake.
For years Antonio had warned of what he saw on the tracks. He contributed to the transport programme of the Izquierda Española party, speaking out about driver fatigue, the strain that followed liberalisation, and a lack of investment in maintenance. His words now read like a testament.
Antonio will never meet his child. Daniel will never drive a high-speed train.
Toñi Barba, 59: a journey given by her daughters
Antonia ‘Toñi’ Barba and her husband, Antonio Chao, both 59, were on their way to a short break in Seville, a present from their daughters, one of whom saw them off at Atocha that morning. Toñi was the mother of Cristina Chao, who plays for CD Leganés’s women’s first team. Antonio, recently retired, is from Abadín, in Lugo, and lives in Alcalá de Henares.
After the impact, Antonio came round beside his wife, who told him her chest and back hurt. He could not move, and when the rescuers reached them he asked them to take her out first. Still conscious, Toñi was able to speak to her daughter Sheila from the ambulance, with the help of a Guardia Civil officer. It was the last time her family heard her voice: Toñi died after that call. For more than 24 hours they did not know where she was, until her death was confirmed. Antonio has undergone spinal surgery and remains in intensive care in Toledo.
Sheila wrote her mother a farewell letter that has moved the whole of Spain. In it she recalls that her father, injured among the wreckage, thought only of her mother being rescued first. She promises to look after him and her sister Cris, and ends by saying that, even when no one is watching, she will always be her mother’s little girl.
Carmen de Santa Ana, 60: one last trip before retirement
She was in seat 15A of carriage 7. A senior executive on the verge of retirement, she was making her final business trip.
Her husband, Javier Barrio, spoke to the cameras with his voice breaking. He said he had not stopped crying for two days and had already understood, the day before, that the chances of finding her alive were remote. In his view, he added, the dead of Urda were the product of a system in a hurry, in which one person ends up doing the work of three.
Julieta Gallego, 24: an athlete on her way to her grandparents
Born in Madrid, she had turned 24 on 9 October, a few weeks before the crash. She was educated at the German School in Madrid and devoted herself to sport from childhood.
A long jumper and 60-metre sprinter, she had jumped 5.90 metres at the Spanish club championships. She lived in Germany, where she competed for LAC Berlin, and on the day of the crash was travelling to Córdoba to visit her grandparents. Her Madrid club, AD Sprint, bade her farewell with the promise that she would always be part of the family.
Pepe San Emeterio, 54: his dog, Trece, survived
Born in Seville and living in Madrid, he was a businessman, the father of a 16-year-old daughter, a Real Betis supporter and a member of a Holy Week brotherhood, standing over six foot three. He was travelling with his dog, Trece.
On the day of the crash his sister, Ana, appealed for help at Seville’s Santa Justa station. His wife confirmed on camera that Trece had been found alive in the carriage where Pepe had been sitting, identified by his collar. Her one wish was that Pepe would be found too.
César Vicente Sanz, 63: the teacher who travelled with his cat
A teacher at the IES Híspalis secondary school in Seville, he was in carriage 8, seat 13A, with his cat in a carrier.
His son, the actor César Vicente, known for Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory, lost contact with him at around 8.30am and spent more than a day searching for him online. When his death was confirmed, he bade farewell with a photograph of himself as a baby in his father’s arms on a beach. He thanked him for standing by him through doubt and difficult decisions, promised to keep listening to Bambino every afternoon, and assured him that he would change the world through art and love.
Ana Martina Conte Grand, 32: she came to meet her nephew
A podiatrist from San Juan, Argentina, she had designed a custom insole to ease the pain of plantar warts and shared a practice with her brother Zacarías. She had a twin brother, Lisandro.
She had come to Spain with her parents to meet her four-month-old nephew, the son of her elder brother Jeremías, a molecular biologist living in Spain. Jeremías was beside her in carriage 7 and survived with several fractures. He later said he had watched her die.
Raquel Mato Gancedo: Madrid, and a village in Lugo
Born and raised in Madrid, she kept close ties with Zanfoga, in Pedrafita do Cebreiro, Lugo — the village her mother left as a young woman for the capital. She was travelling to Seville with her partner, who remains in hospital. Her family has asked that it never be forgotten that behind every name lies a whole life, and that the bereaved not be left alone.
And many more
Iván Romano, 42, had just become a father. David Reina, 22, a Renfe technician from Rincón de la Victoria, was going home to spend a few days with his family. Curro Rico was the father of a five-year-old boy. Tamara González, 31, was a researcher in Vienna. There are 69 names, and each carried a story such as these.
So that they are not forgotten
They boarded a train on an ordinary Wednesday morning, with a suitcase, a dog, a cat, a wedding to attend, a photograph of a newborn nephew on their phones. They meant to arrive. They did not.
What remains is a cancelled wedding, a suitcase that will never be collected, a child who will never know his father, and a man in intensive care whose first thought was for his wife. But what remains, too, is the love that speaks through the letters of sons and daughters, and a reconciliation that came just in time.
We must not allow these people to become a statistic. Their names were Ana, Lute, Antonio, Daniel, Toñi, Carmen, Julieta, Pepe, César, Martina, Raquel — and 58 others. Every one of them had plans for the following day.
On behalf of everyone at Spanien Press, we extend our deepest condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of the 69 who died. We wish the injured strength and a full recovery, and we offer our thanks to the emergency services, the Guardia Civil, and the doctors, nurses and volunteers who gave everything in these days.
May they rest in peace. They will not be forgotten.
The Spanien Press editorial team
