International News

Lucas Merayo, who was in the fifth car of the Madrid-bound Iryo train, told the BBC that about an hour into the journey, it became very bumpy. Passengers became scared and the carriage went silent, he said, “and then we heard a crash” and the train stopped.

Luggage fell and the lights went out. Then they started to hear noises of pain and screams from the three carriages behind them that had derailed, he said.

He and his girlfriend were uninjured, but people were in shock and crying, some experiencing panic attacks. A nurse beside him responded to a call for medical volunteers, and when she came back from the sixth carriage she told him someone had died.

Surviving passengers from the derailed carriages broke glass and went on the tracks to escape. Passengers helped one another get down, and he saw seriously injured people, with bleeding heads and improvised bandages.

The first on the scene were people from Adamuz, some in their pyjamas, who offered to transport the injured, Lucas Merayo said.

After two hours, they were evacuated by bus and Lucas eventually made it back home to Madrid on Monday morning, when he hugged his eight-year-old son and began to cry.

“It’s really, really shocking and overwhelming to be alive when everyone else is not,” said the actor and influencer, who is from Argentina.

He said the experience of the crash is “going to be with me all the time”.

As it was dark, he had not realised the oncoming train had fallen into an embankment until he saw it on the news.