A high-speed commuter train derailed outside of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, killing at least 30 people, according to La Voz de Galicia.

The train was carrying 225 people on a route that ran from Madrid to El Ferol. All 13 cars of the train left the tracks in the crash with at least one of them catching on fire, according to the BBC.

In the crash six cars of the train were on one side of a viaduct while four cars and the engine were on the opposite side. Sergio, an uninjured passenger, described the crash to La Voz De Galicia. "At any moment I thought of an attack," Sergio said. "When the train took the curve, I had the feeling it was going too fast and it derailed." Emergency workers are busy trying to tend to the injured. According to El Mundo, the rescue effort is currently aimed at pulling people out of the wreckage. Some of the cars are on fire and a large plume of smoke can be seen from quite a distance away.


Bodies covered by blankets lay next to the cars while the injured are being attended to by emergency personnel as well as people from the neighborhood. People have given water and blankets to emergency officials and some have even transported the injured to local hospitals in their cars, according to El Mundo.

This derailment marks the first crash to ever occur on one of Spain's high-speed tracks despite Spain having one of the world's largest high-speed rail networks, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The cause of the derailment was not yet known but a spokesman for Spain's interior ministry said that it looks like it was an accident, according to the Wall Street Journal. This accident comes only two weeks after a train derailment outside of Paris killed six people and seriously injured at least eight others. That derailment was caused by a loose steel plate preventing the rolling stock from passing through.

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