MADRID — A commuter train collided with a crane arm that swung into its path in southeastern Spain on Thursday (Jan 22), the transport minister said, in the country's fourth rail accident in less than a week.
Six people suffered minor injuries after the arm hit the passing train's windows, close to the port city of Cartagena in Murcia region, authorities added.
The incident — which did not derail the train but briefly disrupted traffic on the line — came four days after a high-speed train collision in the southern Andalusia region killed at least 43 people.
Two days after that, on Tuesday, a commuter train derailed after a containment wall fell on the track due to heavy rain near the city of Barcelona, killing the driver and seriously injuring four passengers.
The main train drivers' union called a nationwide strike over safety standards after that and a second, less serious, collision in the northeastern Catalonia region the same day.
On Thursday, "a street-lighting basket crane vehicle... encroached on public railway land with its arm, striking the windows of a metric gauge train that was passing by at the time," Transport Minister Oscar Puente wrote in a post on X.
The injuries were minor, a spokesperson for the central government's representative in Murcia told Reuters.
Alcohol tests on both the train driver and the crane operator were negative, they added.
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