Spanish train toll climbs to 79

The death toll from Spain’s train derailment has risen to 79 after an injured passenger died in a hospital.

A spokeswoman at the University Hospital complex in Santiago de Compostela did not identify the victim but Spanish national broadcaster RTVE said the person was an American woman.

A local resident who rushed to the scene of Wednesday’s accident said in an interview published today that minutes after the crash the driver said he had been going fast and couldn’t brake.

In a television interview broadcast today by Antena 3, Evaristo Iglesias said he and another person accompanied Francisco Jose Garzon Amo to a stretch of flat ground where other injured people were being laid out, waiting for emergency services to arrive.

Iglesias said: “He told us that he wanted to die.”

He adds that Garzon said he “had been going fast” and “he said he had needed to brake but couldn’t”.

Earlier the injured driver was released from hospital but is still being held in a police station as authorities increasingly focus on his culpability.

Garzon is due to appear before a judge by Sunday evening, a hotly awaited opportunity for him to give his explanation for Spain’s deadliest train crash in decades.

Garzon has been under the microscope, with the country’s railway agency saying it was his responsibility to brake before going into the high-risk curve where the train careered off the rails and smashed into a wall. It is still not clear whether the brakes failed or were never used, and Garzon has remained silent so far.