Spanish passenger train derailed killing at least 78 people and injuring 140 (VIDEO)

A terrifying video has been captured the moment a Spanish passenger train hurtled off the tracks and smashed into a wall, killing at least 78 people. 

All eight carriages of the Madrid to Ferrol train derailed near the city of Santiago de Compostela last night, leaving at least 140 people injured including one Briton.

Dramatic video footage from a security camera shows the train careering into a concrete wall as it came off the rails on the bend, before flipping onto its side and hurtling down the railway line with its terrified passengers on board.

One of the drivers was trapped in his cabin and told the railway station by radio that the train entered the bend at 190 kilometres per hour (120 mph), reported newspaper El Pais. 

The speed limit on that section of track is 80km/h.

'We're only human! We're only human!' he told the station, the newspaper said, citing sources close to the investigation. 'I hope there are no dead, because this will fall on my conscience.'

Police have put an unnamed train driver under formal investigation - the Galicia government said one driver was in hospital. 

Newspaper reports cited witnesses as saying driver Francisco Jose Garzon,who helped rescue victims, had shouted: 'I've derailed! What do I do?' into a phone.

The accident is the worst train accident in 30 years and television footage showed one wagon pointing upwards into the air with one of its ends twisted and disfigured

Another carriage that had been severed in two could be seen lying on a road near the track.

State-owned train operator Renfe said in a statement that 218 passengers and an unspecified number of staff were on board at the time of the accident. 

Twisted: The accident is the worst train accident in 30 years and television footage showed one wagon pointing upwards into the air with one of its ends twisted and disfigured

Accident: The train jumped the tracks on a bend just before arriving in the northwestern shrine city of Santiago de Compostela

Horrifying: At least 77 people have been killed and more than 130 injured including one Briton after a packed Spanish passenger train derailed on a bend last night

Renfe said the derailment happened at 8.41pm local time on a high-speed section that was inaugurated two years ago.

After the crash, bodies were seen covered in blankets next to the tracks and rescue workers tried to get trapped people out of the train's carriages, with smoke billowing from some of the wreckage.

Some passengers were pulled out of broken windows, and one man stood on a carriage lying on its side, using a pickaxe to try to smash through a window.

TVE showed footage of what appeared to be several bodies covered by blankets alongside the tracks next to the damaged train wagons and rescue workers entering toppled carriages through broken windows.

The crash happened about an hour before sunset after the train emerged from a tunnel and derailed on the curve - sending cars flying off the tracks. 

As casualties were taken to hospitals in Santiago and two other cities in the region, authorities appealed for people to donate blood.

Neighbours responded to calls from the police to bring blankets and sheets to the scene along with bottles of water.

As darkness fell, generators and emergency lighting were brought in to help the rescue teams.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, president of the region of Galicia, described the scene as 'Dante-esque'.

One of the passengers, Sergio Prego, said: 'The train travelled very fast and derailed and turned over on the bend in the track. It's a disaster. I've been very lucky because I'm one of the few to be able to walk out.'

Another passenger, Ricardo Montero, said: 'When the train reached that bend it began to flip over, many times, with some carriages ending up on top of others, leaving many people trapped below. We had to get under the carriages to get out.'

Lidia Cannon, who previously lived in the city and was visiting for the local fiesta celebrating St James, said she saw a woman who had lost a foot as a result of the train crash.

People living nearby rushed to the scene with bottles of water and blankets

Carnage: People look down from the rail bridge on the aftermath of a devastating train crash in north west Spain

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We heard a big bang, like, we thought it was an air crash, I thought it was a car crash, other people thought it was a bomb. It was very, very loud, the noise.'

Ms Cannon said people went to help and told of one man's experience of visiting the crash site.

She said: 'He couldn't cope with it. He said he was there 20 minutes but he took out a man that was asking for his wife and his wife was inside, dead. A boy was looking for his girlfriend and she was inside the train, dead. 

'He was taking out people that had mobile phones in their pockets ringing all the time. He couldn't cope with it because policemen and doctors and everyone was crying and he had to leave.

'I saw a woman who had lost one foot. But instead of crying or shouting or whatever because of the pain she was looking very, very serious. They were carrying her away and she had her sight, her eyes, were looking to one point - she was in shock.'

Miguel Morado, journalist at local newspaper La Voz de Galicia said: Everything points to inadequate [sic] speed - the train driver who survived the crash, when he was being rescued didn't know that people had died, and admitted going too fast with the train... 

'He gave a figure he said he was going at 190 km/h - this is part of a network where the speed limit is 80.

'Although it's clear that it was human error, that the driver made a mistake, there's also the question of the line in that part of the network.
Galicia is distant from the centre, it's never been well connected with Madrid... The people who made the decisions were too hasty.' 

Officials said they believed the crash was an accident but declined to offer more details, saying an investigation was under way into the cause. 

Renfe said that it - and track operator Adif - were collaborating with a judge who has been appointed to probe the accident.

Passenger Ricardo Montesco said: ‘It was going so quickly . . . it seems that on a curve the train started to twist, and the carriages piled up one on top of the other.

The accident occurred near the station in Santiago de Compostela, 60 miles south of El Ferrol. 

The train, which belongs to the state-owned Renfe company, was not an AVE high speed train, but it was a relatively luxurious version that uses the same track as Spain's fastest expresses.

It was Spain's deadliest train accident in decades. 

In 1944, a train travelling from Madrid to Galicia crashed and killed 78 people. Another accident in 1972 left 77 dead on a track to south-western Seville, according to Spanish news agency Europa Press.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia region, visited the site and the main hospital on this morning. 

He declared three days of official national mourning for the victims of the disaster

The incident happened as Catholic pilgrims converged on Santiago de Compostela to celebrate a festival honouring St James, the disciple of Jesus whose remains are said to rest in a shrine.

The city is the main gathering point for the faithful who make it to the end of the El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that has drawn Christians since the Middle Ages.

The feast day festivities were cancelled, town hall spokeswoman Maria Pardo told Spanish National television TVE.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said: 'I was very saddened to hear of the terrible train accident near Santiago de Compostela in Spain last night.

'My thoughts are with all those affected and their friends and family.

Search effort: Rescue efforts were continuing tonight following the train crash which officials say has killed at least 35

'The British Embassy team in Spain are working closely with the Spanish authorities as they respond to this tragedy.

'We know that one British citizen was injured in this accident and the embassy has been providing consular support.'

Keith Barrow, associate editor of International Railway Journal, whose editorial offices are in Falmouth in Cornwall, said today: 'Spanish railways' safety record is pretty good.

'Major accidents have been extremely rare. A lot of money has been poured into the system and passenger numbers were rising before the 2008 recession, which has hit Spain particularly badly.

'There has been a big reduction in fares lately to try to get more passengers to use the railways. A number of lines have been electrified and there are plans to allow private companies to operate services.'

Mr Barrow said the train involved in the Santiago accident was a Class 730 high-speed train.

He went on: 'Investigators will want to recover the data recorder from the train's cab so they can establish just what happened.

'People in Spain will obviously be shocked by what has happened. It's the worst crash they have had in many years. But I don't think people will be put off travelling by train.'

Culled from DAILY MAIL