Party crowd mowed down by train

A train ploughed into a group of youngsters taking a short cut to a Spanish beach party killing at least 12 of them.

Another 14 were injured in the country’s worst rail accident since 2003.

The youths got off a commuter train in the beach resort of Castelldefels outside Barcelona shortly before midnight Wednesday to head to the party. About 30 climbed down off the platform and tried to run across the tracks instead of using an underpass to leave the station.

Seconds later, a long-distance train that was not scheduled to stop at the station sped into them, its whistle shrieking.

Marcelo Cardona, who was on the commuter train, said the many people aboard had been looking forward to dancing around a bonfire on the Mediterranean shore.

“The euphoria of getting off the train immediately became screams. There were people screaming, ’my daughter! my sister!”’ said Mr Cardona, a 34-year-old Bolivian. He said he saw “mutilated people, blood everywhere, blood on the platform.”

Felipe Elmaji, a 29-year-old Moroccan, said he heard a “thump, thump of the train hitting people.”

Mr Cardona said his party had waited on the platform to let a large crowd work its way through the underpass leading out of the station.

Mayor Joan Sau said: “If the underpass had been used, we would probably not be talking about this tragedy right now.”

He said there is also a pedestrian walkway over the tracks but it was closed, having been replaced by the underpass when the station was renovated late last year.

Except for a woman in her 40s, all of the dead and injured were under 29, and two were teenagers. Many of the victims were Latin American immigrants.

Catalan regional Interior Minister Joan Saura said police are trying to identify those who died. “It will not be easy and it will not be fast,” he said.

As an investigation got under way, the chairman of the state railway company RENFE, Teofilo Serrano, said he was “almost certain” the long-distance train was not exceeding the speed limit as it came through the station.

The beach festival was part of a nationwide ritual always held around the time of the summer solstice. It is called Noche de San Juan, or night of St. John. It is celebrated in much of Spain but with particular zeal in Catalonia. People light bonfires in town squares and on beaches, dancing around them and even jumping over them, and set off fireworks.

“Last night, Noche de San Juan, which is normally a night of festivity in Catalonia, turned tragic,” the Catalan regional president, Jose Montilla, said as he visited the accident scene.

He declared a day of mourning throughout the region. Flags flew at half-mast at town hall in Castelldefels. Crews hosed down the bloodied train tracks.