Dawn

Dawn

Monday, July 29, 2013

The Spanish Train Tragedy 18. And other things.

The Spanish press is reporting that 'court sources' say the driver admitted to an oversight that led him to be doing nearly 200kph as he entered the 80kph zone and then took the sharp bend. There is no news on what this oversight was and how it came to happen. The more important question of whether controls failed has yet to be answered. The black box data is said to be under analysis as of today.

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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