Another train crashes in Spain, killing 1 person, days after fatal high-speed train collision

GELIDA, Spain (AP) — Commuter rail service in Spain's northeastern Catalonia region was suspended Wednesday after a Barcelona commuter train crashed the night before, Spanish authorities said.

At least one person died in the Barcelona-area crash, and 37 others were injured as crews worked at night to complete the rescue effort. The train hit a retaining wall that fell onto the tracks, authorities said.

The news late Tuesday of another train crash mere days after Spain’s worst railway disaster since 2013 left many Spaniards in disbelief. Emergency workers were still searching for victims in the wreckage from Sunday’s high-speed crash in southern Spain that killed at least 42 people and injured dozens some 800 kilometers (497 miles) away.

Three days of national mourning were underway, while the cause of that crash was being investigated.

The victim of Tuesday night's crash was a conductor in training, regional authorities said. Most of the injured had ridden in the first train car.

The disruptions Wednesday morning caused significant traffic jams on roads leading into Barcelona. Regional authorities in Catalonia asked people to reduce unnecessary travel and companies to allow remote work while the disruptions continued.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez offered condolences to those affected in the Barcelona crash, writing on X: “All my affection and solidarity with the victims and their families.”

While Spain’s high-speed rail network generally runs smoothly, and at least until Sunday had been a source of confidence, commuter rail services are plagued by reliability issues. However, accidents causing injury or death are not common.

The commuter train crashed near the town of Gelida, located about 37 kilometers (23 miles) outside Barcelona.

Spain’s railway operator ADIF said the containment wall likely collapsed due to heavy rainfall that swept across the northeastern Spanish region this week.

Sunday's 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 crash took place near Adamuz, a town about 370 kilometers (roughly 230 miles) from the Spanish capital, Madrid.

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.

Authorities were still searching for more bodies Wednesday. Health authorities said 37 people remained in hospitals Wednesday morning, while 86 people were treated and discharged.

Among the injured was Santiago Tavares, a Portuguese traveler who broke his leg in the rail accident.

“Minutes before the train crash I had a feeling that an accident would happen because the carriage was moving a lot,” Tavares told Portuguese broadcaster TVI. “I even mentioned to my girlfriend that the carriage was moving more than normal. Ten minutes later the accident happens, I started to fly ... Then, I woke up and I realized I was alive.”

Officials are continuing to investigate what caused both train accidents. Transport Minister Oscar Puente called Sunday's collision “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.

In August, the Spanish Union of Railway Drivers sent a letter asking Spain’s national railway operator to investigate flaws on train lines across the country and to reduce speeds at certain points until the tracks were fully repaired. Those recommendations were made for high-speed train lines, including the one where Sunday’s accident took place, the union told The Associated Press.

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.

Naishadham reported from Madrid.

Police officers and firefighters inspect the damage after a commuter train derailed as a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks in Gelida, near Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu Parra)

Police officers inspect the damage after a commuter train derailed as a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks in Gelida, near Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu Parra)

Police officers and firefighters inspect the damage after a commuter train derailed as a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks in Gelida, near Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu Parra)

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

Emergency crews respond after a commuter train derailed when a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks in Gelida, near Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu Parra)

Emergency crews respond after a commuter train derailed when a retaining wall collapsed onto the tracks in Gelida, near Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Mateu Parra)

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) — President Donald Trump has landed in Switzerland following hours of delay after a minor electrical issue aboard Air Force forced a return to Washington to switch aircraft.

Trump is set to address the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps on Wednesday, where his ambitions to wrest control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark could tear relations with European allies and overshadow his original plan to use his appearance at the gathering of global elites to address affordability issues back home.

Trump comes to the international forum at Davos on the heels of threatening tariffs on Denmark and seven other allies unless they negotiate a transfer of the semi-autonomous territory — a concession the European leaders indicated they are not willing to make. Trump said the tariffs would start at 10% next month and climb to 25% in June, rates that would be high enough to increase costs and slow growth, potentially hurting Trump’s efforts to tamp down the high cost of living.

The president in a text message that circulated among European officials this week also linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize. In the message, he told Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

In the midst of an unusual stretch of testing the United States' relations with longtime allies, it seems uncertain what might transpire during Trump's two days in Switzerland.

On Tuesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a Davos panel he and Trump planned to deliver a stark message: “Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy,” he said.

“This will be an interesting trip,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Tuesday evening for his flight to Davos. “I have no idea what’s going to happen, but you are well represented.”

In fact, his trip to Davos got off to a difficult start. There was a small electrical problem on Air Force One, leading the crew to turn around the plane about 30 minutes into the flight out of an abundance of caution. That pushed the president's arrival in Switzerland back hours.

Wall Street wobbled on Tuesday as investors weighed Trump's new tariff threats and escalating tensions with European allies. The S&P 500 fell 2.1%, its biggest drop since October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.8%. The Nasdaq composite slumped 2.4%.

“It’s clear that we are reaching a time of instability, of imbalances, both from the security and defense point of view, and economic point of view,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in his address to the forum. Macron made no direct mention of Trump but urged fellow leaders to reject acceptance of “the law of the strongest.”

Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that should Trump move forward with the tariffts, the bloc's response “will be unflinching, united and proportional." She pointedly suggested that Trump's new tariff threat could also undercut a US-EU trade framework reached this summer that the Trump administration worked hard to to seal.

“The European Union and the United States have agreed to a trade deal last July,” von der Leyen said in Davos. “And in politics as in business — a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.”

Trump, ahead of the address, said he planned on using his Davos appearance to talk about making housing more attainable and other affordability issues that are top priorities for Americans.

But Trump’s Greenland tariff threat could disrupt the U.S. economy if it blows up the trade truce reached last year between the U.S. and the EU, said Scott Lincicome, a tariff critic and vice president on economic issues at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“Significantly undermining investors' confidence in the U.S. economy in the longer term would likely increase interest rates and thus make homes less affordable,” Lincicome said.

Trump also on Tuesday warned Europe against retaliatory action for the coming new tariffs.

“Anything they do with us, I’ll just meet it,” Trump said on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight.” “All I have to do is meet it, and it’s going to go ricocheting backward.”

Davos — a forum known for its appeal to the global elite — is an odd backdrop for a speech on affordability. But White House officials have promoted it as a moment for Trump to try to rekindle populist support back in the U.S., where many voters who backed him in 2024 view affordability as a major problem. About six in 10 U.S. adults now say that Trump has hurt the cost of living, according to the latest survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

U.S. home sales are at a 30-year low with rising prices and elevated mortgage rates keeping many prospective buyers out of the market. So far, Trump has announced plans to buy $200 billion in mortgage securities to help lower interest rates on home loans, and has called for a ban on large financial companies buying houses.

The White House has said Trump plans to meet with leaders on the sidelines of the forum, after he gives his keynote address. There are more than 60 other heads of state attending.

On Thursday, Trump plans to have an event to talk about the “Board of Peace,” a new body meant to oversee the end of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and possibly take on a broader mandate, potentially rivaling the United Nations.

Fewer than 10 leaders have accepted invitations to join the group so far, including a handful of leaders considered to be anti-democratic authoritarians. Several of America’s main European partners have declined or been noncommittal, including Britain, France and Germany.

Trump on Tuesday told reporters that his peace board “might” eventually make the U.N. obsolete but insisted he wants to see the international body stick around.

“I believe you got to let the U.N. continue, because the potential is so great," Trump said.

Weissert and Madhani reported from Washington.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks at the USA house during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Mark Rutte, Secretary-General, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), speaks during a panel discussion during the 56th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (Gian Ehrenzeller/Keystone via AP)

Things are unloaded from Air Force One after the plane, carrying President Donald Trump to the World Economic Form in Davos, experienced a minor electrical issue after departure, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, and returned to Joint Base Andrews, Md. Trump will board a second plane to complete the trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump speaks before departing on Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)