Spain begins 3 days of mourning for train wreck victims as death toll rises to 42

ADAMUZ, Spain (AP) — Spanish emergency workers searched Tuesday for more victims in the wreckage of a deadly train accident in southern Spain that killed at least 42 people, as the nation began three days of mourning for the victims.

Antonio Sanz, the regional health minister of Andalusia, where the accident occurred, told Spanish media that the official toll from Sunday’s accident had risen after another corpse was discovered in a severely damaged car.

Amid the tragedy, it emerged that a six-year-old girl survived the wreck without major injury, while her parents, brother and cousin all perished.

Fidel Sáez lost his mother in the wreck, but his two children, his brother and a nephew survived. Their trip to the capital to see musical “The Lion King” turned into a nightmare on the way home.

“My brother has been taken off respirator. He told me that it was a miracle that he is alive. He had to get the children through a window,” Sáez told national TV broadcaster TVE. “He also asked me to tell the story of our mother, how good she was."

Health authorities said 39 people remained in hospitals on Tuesday morning, while 83 people were treated and discharged.

Among them was Emil Johnson, a Swedish citizen based in Malaga who was traveling to Madrid to renew his passport.

“It was probably two, three seconds. And everything was broken,” Jonsson, sitting in a wheelchair due to bruises on his ribs and back and dressed in part of a hospital gown, told reporters. “When we crashed, I didn’t know who was alive and who was dead.”

The crash happened at 7:45 p.m. when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, derailed and crashed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern city, according to rail operator Adif.

The front of the second train, which was carrying 184 people, took the brunt of the impact, which knocked its first two carriages off the track and down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of meters (feet) from the crash site, according to Andalusia regional President Juanma Moreno.

Associated Press images taken Tuesday showed the remains of the first two cars of the second train, severed from the rest of the train and lying beside the tracks. Train seats had been ejected onto the rocks that provide packing under the tracks.

Further along the tracks, Civil Guard officers inspected the interior of the first train with dogs as passengers’ belongings lay scattered on the floor, according to the video distributed by authorities. The last carriage was lying on its side on the tracks, and the second-to-last carriage was leaning to one side with all its windows shattered.

Officials are continuing to investigate the causes of the accident that Puente has called “truly strange” since it occurred on a straight line and neither train was speeding.

Puente said officials had found a broken section of track that could possibly be related to the accident's origin, while insisting that is just a hypothesis and that it could take weeks to reach any conclusions.

“Now we have to determine if that is a cause or a consequence (of the derailment),” Puente told Spanish radio Cadena Ser.

At this time, “all hypotheses are open,” Grande Marlaska told a press conference. Accident investigators will analyze “the rails at the point where the derailment began and inspect the wheels" of the first train in a laboratory, he added.

The train that jumped the track belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train belonged to Spain’s public train company, Renfe.

Iryo said in a statement Monday that its train was manufactured in 2022 and had passed a safety check on Jan. 15.

Puente and Renfe president Álvaro Fernández said that both trains were traveling well under the speed limit of 250 kph (155 mph) and “human error could be ruled out.”

The accident shook a nation that leads Europe in high-speed train mileage and takes pride in a network that is considered at the cutting edge of rail transport.

“It is undoubtedly a hard blow, and I have to work so it doesn’t affect the credibility and strength of the network,” Puente told Spanish national radio RNE on Tuesday when asked about the damage to the reputation of the rail system.

Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia visited the scene of the accident, where they greeted emergency workers as well as some local residents who helped in the initial stages of the rescue. Afterwards, they went to hospital in Cordoba where many of the injured remain under care.

“We are all responsible for not looking away when the debris of a catastrophe is being cleared away," said Letizia to reporters after the visit.

Spain's Civil Guard is collecting DNA samples from family members who fear they have loved ones among the unidentified dead.

High-speed trains resumed service Tuesday from Madrid to Sevilla and Malaga, the largest cities in Andalusia, Spain’s most populous region, but passengers had to travel a stretch of the journey by buses provided by the rail service. Minister Puente said that the normal train service won’t resume until early February.

Spanish airline Iberia added more flights to southern cities until Sunday to help stranded travelers. Some bus companies also reinforced their services in the south.

Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. Photographer Manu Sánchez in Adamuz and AP journalist Teresa Medrano in Madrid contributed.

View of the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

View of the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia visit the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Joaquin Corchero/Europa Press via AP) **SPAIN OUT**

Guardia Civil officers collect evidence next to the wreckage of train cars involved in a collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Guardia Civil officers collect evidence next to the wreckage of train cars involved in a collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Guardia Civil officers collect evidence next to the wreckage of train cars involved in a collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

In this grab taken from video provided by Guardia Civil, rescue workers at the scene following a high-speed train collision, in Adamuz, Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (Guardia Civil via AP)

An injured person is transported to the makeshift hospital in the sports center in Adamuz, near Córdoba, southern Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, after a high-speed train derailed and collided with another train. (Francisco J. Olmo/Europa Press via AP)

In this grab taken from video provided by Guardia Civil, rescue workers at the scene after a high speed train collision,in Adamuz, Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (Guardia Civil via AP)

Emergency crews work at the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Part of a wrecked train is photographed at the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal prosecutors served six grand jury subpoenas Tuesday to Minnesota officials as part of an investigation into whether they obstructed or impeded federal law enforcement during a sweeping immigration operation in Minneapolis-St. Paul area, a person familiar with the matter said.

The subpoenas, which seek records, were sent to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties, the person said.

The person was not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The subpoenas came as the Trump administration urged a judge to reject efforts by Minnesota and its largest cities to stop the immigration enforcement surge that has roiled Minneapolis and St. Paul for weeks.

The Justice Department called the lawsuit, filed soon after the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an immigration officer, “legally frivolous.” Lawyers argued that the Department of Homeland Security is acting within its legal powers to enforce immigration laws.

Operation Metro Surge has made the state safer with the arrests of more than 3,000 people who were in the country illegally, the government said Monday in a court filing.

“Put simply, Minnesota wants a veto over federal law enforcement,” Justice Department attorneys wrote.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said the government is violating free speech and other constitutional rights with its unprecedented sweeps. He described the armed officers as poorly trained and said the “invasion” must cease.

The lawsuit filed Jan. 12 seeks an order to halt or limit the enforcement action. More filings are expected, and it's not known when U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez will make a decision.

Ilan Wurman, who teaches constitutional law at University of Minnesota Law School, doubts the state's arguments will be successful.

“There's no question that federal law is supreme over state law, that immigration enforcement is within the power of the federal government, and the president, within statutory bounds, can allocate more federal enforcement resources to states who’ve been less cooperative in that enforcement space than other states have been,” Wurman told The Associated Press.

Julia Decker, policy director at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, expressed frustration that advocates have no way of knowing whether the government’s arrest numbers and descriptions of the people in custody are accurate. U.S. citizens have been dragged from their homes and vehicles during the Minnesota surge.

“These are real people we’re talking about, that we potentially have no idea what is happening to them,” Decker said.

In a separate lawsuit, Menendez said Friday that federal officers can’t detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing authorities.

Good, 37, was killed on Jan. 7 as she was moving her vehicle, which had been blocking a Minneapolis street where Immigration and Customers Enforcement officers were operating. Trump administration officials say the officer, Jonathan Ross, shot her in self-defense, although videos of the encounter show the Honda Pilot slowly turning away from him.

Since then, the public has repeatedly confronted officers, blowing whistles and yelling insults at ICE and U.S. Border Patrol. They, in turn, have used tear gas and chemical irritants against protesters. Bystanders have recorded video of officers using a battering ram to get into a house as well as smashing vehicle windows and dragging people out of cars.

Police in the region, meanwhile, said off-duty law enforcement officers have been racially profiled by federal officers and stopped without cause. Brooklyn Park police Chief Mark Bruley said he has received complaints from residents who are U.S. citizens, including his own officers.

“Every one of these individuals is a person of color who has had this happening,” Bruley said during a news conference.

He said he believes the stops have been conducted a “small group of individuals,” and not all agents in the area.

President Donald Trump last week threatened to invoke an 1807 law and send troops to Minnesota, though he has backed off, at least in his public remarks.

Richer reported from Washington, D.C. Associated Press reporter Sarah Raza in Minneapolis contributed.

A federal immigration officer looks through a window of a home Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Maplewood, Minn. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A protester writes pro BLM and Anti-ICE rhetoric on the window of her car during an ICE protest and celebration of MLK day, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026 in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

People arrive for an MLK rally on, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026 in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

ICE agents make use of the facilities at a gas station, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)