A new recording has
emerged of a phone call made by a train driver moments after a crash in Spain
which killed 79 people.
Francisco Jose Garzon
can be heard telling a colleague he had been driving at 190 km/h (118 mph)
instead of 80 km/h after becoming distracted.
He also described the
bend in the track where the train derailed and caught fire near the city of
Santiago de Compostela as "inhuman," adding that he had complained
about it before.
The driver and the
state-owned railway firm Renfe are both on trial over the crash, one of the
worst rail disasters in Spanish history.
Garzon has been
charged with "79 counts of homicide and numerous offences of bodily harm
committed through professional recklessness". The driver is not in
custody but remains under court supervision.
In the accident, which
too place on the evening on 24 July, all eight carriages of the train careered
off the tracks into a concrete wall as they sped around a bend on the route
between Madrid and the coastal city of Ferrol. Some 170 people were injured.
The recording of
Garzon's call was obtained by the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
In it, he can be heard
telling a colleague at Madrid's central station: "There must be many
injured, [the train] has turned over, I can't get out of the cabin."
He can be repeatedly
heard saying "poor passengers," at one point adding: "I hope
no-one has died."
He also admitted driving
too fast.
"I got distracted
and I [was meant] to be going at 80, but I was going at 190," he said.
"I had already
mentioned to the safety people that this [curve] was dangerous, that one day
something like this could happen."
Judicial authorities
earlier said the train was travelling at 192km/h (119mph) on the bend where it
derailed.
Separately, Garzon was
apparently recorded on the train's black box recorder saying: "I ****ed it
up. "I want to die."
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