As
we wait, the President of Adif appears to have jacked up his opinion
from "The driver should have started to slow 4km from the bend"
to "He was warned to slow down 4km from the bend." Again,
we don't know who warned him and what they did when they were
ignored.
Someone
who was on the train has said she looked up just before the
crash to see the speed panel reading 210kph. This is odd, as there've
been regular statements that the AFSA control system would cause the
train to brake if it went above 200kph.
The
railway drivers' union has, understandably, expressed concern that
Garzón had been formally accused before the extraction and analysis
of data from the black boxes. Especially as he was known for his
prudence. Perhaps this is why the judge distanced himself from the
police decision to arrest him.
A
resident of the village near to the accident reports that he heard
the driver say he couldn't brake as he came into the bend but this is
susceptible to different meanings.
In
short, we may now know the legal status of the driver but the rest
will remain unclear until we have the analysis of the black box data.
Meanwhile,
it's sad to know that it didn't take long for someone to try to take
advantage of the crash to make a claim as the alleged partner of one
of the victims.
Life,
of course, goes on for those of us fortunate enough not to have been
involved in this or any other tragedy. Today I decided to take a look
at a religious ceremony cited as No. 2 on a list of the 10 oddest
'fiestas' in Spain - in Santa Maria de Riberteme, down by the border
with Portugal. I had wondered whether it would be cancelled, as we
have 3 days official mourning left in Galicia, but - perhaps because
of its non-jovial nature - it wasn't.
The
centrepiece of the ceremony is a post-Mass procession of insignia,
statues and open coffins. The latter contain people who've had a
near-death experience during the last year and it was reported that,
apart from a local or two, people had come from Madrid, Barcelona and
even Argentina for the honour of sampling the coffin experience and
being carried round the village to the sound of a mournful band.
Anyway,
I leave you with some fotos:-
Some are less heavy than others. |
This one doesn't seem like a good fit. |
This one appears to have a built in camera. Or rear-view mirror. |
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