Subway train speeding before crash killed 41

A VALENCIA subway train was travelling at twice the normal speed when it derailed, killing 41 people, a Spanish government official said today.

The excessive speed has led officials to think the driver had either fainted or become otherwise indisposed prior to the accident yesterday, said the Valencia regional transport minister, Jose Ramon Garcia Anton.

Earlier, traffic stopped, construction workers paused and government officials stood grim-faced during minutes of silence yesterday, in memory of those killed in Spain’s worst-ever underground rail accident.

A plaza outside the headquarters of the Valencia regional government swelled with hundreds of people for the noon vigil after Monday’s tragedy, in which a crowded underground train derailed and turned over in the eastern port city.

“Spaniards’ hearts are in Valencia,” deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said after attending the ceremony.