Yesterday the train ran from Sagunto, just above Valencia, to Zaragoza, below Barcelona. Things went wrong near Castellón. The driver saw a forest fire on the path ahead. Deciding that the situation had become too unsafe, the train stopped and wanted to go back.
48 passengers
Local media reported that the train driver invited 48 passengers on board the train to stay in their seats. However, some of them panicked. They smashed the windows and jumped off the train before the driver could head back towards Sagunto.
“When the passengers saw that they were trapped in the fire, some of them went back to the train,” a Spanish railway spokesman told the British newspaper, The Guardian. A number of them suffered burns.”
Rail passengers
According to the local newspaper A Punt, three people were seriously injured. They were taken by helicopter to different hospitals. A 58-year-old woman and a 15-year-old girl were said to have sustained severe burns. At least ten others were slightly injured.
Not everyone was going back to the train. A number of passengers left on foot on the railroad tracks, as evidenced by the photos:
It is not clear how the train ended up along a track that caught fire. The local fire brigade has issued various statements about this to local media. Spain is ravaged by severe forest fires.
last month too
Elsewhere in Spain, not far from the border with Portugal, a train was also surrounded by fire last month. The passengers were terrified, but no one was hurt:
Forest fires north of Valencia have burned more than 800 hectares of nature in recent days. South of the Spanish city, authorities are trying to fight another fire. There, 11,000 hectares of forest were burned.
