More than 10,000 people were blocked in Spain after cable flights along a train track and a technical problem disrupted high -speed railroad trips on Sunday and on Monday, officials announced.
It was the last test for Spain, which is still in shock from a power failure last week, one of the worst in recent European history. The cause of the power failure remains clear.
Oscar Puente, the Minister of Transport, described the flights of “serious act of sabotage” in a Social media message.
Mr. Puente said the Spanish national police investigated thefts in five places At stake between Madrid and Seville. He said they were partly responsible for the generalized travel interruptions on Sunday, which is observed as Mother’s Day in Spain.
It was not clear that had stolen the cables, and why, but Mr. Puente described the episode as a “low value cable” supposed to wreak havoc.
“The one who did it knew what they were doing because there were no cameras, and the financial gain is absolutely negligible compared to the enormous damage,” said Mr. Puente said to the Cadena Ser In Spanish on Monday.
“It’s a fairly coordinated action”, ” He said The radio program “today for today”.
Mr. Puente said In a post on x On Monday morning, high -speed rail service should be back to normal in the afternoon – almost a full day after cable flights were reported.
Cable flights, which occurred Before 6 p.m.. Sunday, was not the only reason for the disturbances, Álvaro Fernández Heredia, president of Renfe, the National Rail Company of Spain, wrote on x.
Mr. Fernández Heredia also blamed a technical problem for the situation, which, according to him, had affected more than 10,000 passengers.
After the flights, a train also “hung, dragging the airline line”, ” He wrote in Spanish. Traffic traffic has been interrupted when the problem was solved, he added.
Cascade challenges left travelers blocked to stations and trains in trains for hours, as did passengers were during the generalized electricity failure last week.
Inés Sánchez, a secondary teacher who lives in Madrid, said that she was stuck on a train for 10 hours. Ms. Sánchez, 37, was supposed to come back from a trip from Seville a few hours earlier, at 10 p.m., but she did not arrive before 6 am and went to work immediately after the shower and the change.
“This morning, I taught like a zombie,” she wrote in a WhatsApp message.
Javier Santos, 31, who worked in quality insurance in Madrid, returned home from a trip to Huelva, on the southwest coast of Spain, with friends when the train suddenly stopped. At first, he wrote in a direct message on X, they were told that they would be arrested for about 30 minutes.
But soon, while the reports began to circulate on the disturbance, they realized that they would probably be on the train for hours. Passengers flooded the bar car and the products quickly started selling, Santos said. It quickly became clear that he would miss a Mother’s Day dinner with his parents and his brother.
“The trip felt endless,” he wrote.
His train arrived in Madrid around 11:30 p.m., about eight o’clock after his departure, during a trip that would usually take around four or five hours. For him, the test looked like a sign of a broader national challenge.
“From my point of view, they say that what happened yesterday was due to copper flights in several places, but the reality is that there is not enough investment in infrastructure,” wrote Mr. Santos, adding: “Spain debt continues to increase, but we do not see improvements in people’s daily life.”
