Spanish train crash: One dead, 30 injured

A train carrying 87 passengers collided head-on with a freight train in central Spain tonight, killing at least one person and injuring around 30, officials said.

The locomotive and the first few cars of the Talgo passenger train caught fire after the crash near Chinchilla in Albacete province.

Television footage showed flaming cars piled up on the tracks.

The provisional toll of one dead may rise, Marcos Marso, head of the Castilla-La Mancha regional emergency rescue service, told the national news agency Efe.

The state railway company Renfe confirmed there were fatalities but said it had no figures.

Police had warned people in Chinchilla to stay indoors and close their windows, believing the freight train was carrying sulphuric acid.

But Renfe said that although the train had carried the toxic chemical in an earlier trip, those tanker cars were empty at the time of the crash.

The passenger train was heading from Madrid to the eastern town of Murcia.