Photo: Manu Fernandez/AP
On the evening of 5 May, Spain faced a large-scale transport collapse: the theft of copper cables at four different locations south of Madrid partially halted high-speed trains. Hundreds of passengers were forced to spend the night in carriages, and thousands – at train stations, TheGuardian reported, citing local authorities.
Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente called the incident a “serious act of sabotage” and said that the thieves had stolen cables over a stretch of up to 10 kilometres. Infrastructure operator Adif confirmed that nine trains were blocked between stations, and teams of specialists are urgently working to restore the lines.
The situation caused severe disruption to traffic from Madrid to key cities in the south – Seville, Malaga and Toledo. On Monday morning, traffic to Toledo was partially restored, but other destinations remained paralysed. Madrid’s central Atocha station was overcrowded with passengers waiting for hours to depart.
The incident came just days after a major power failure that had previously caused massive train delays. Spain’s high-speed rail network is one of the most developed in Europe and is key to the government’s strategy to decarbonise transport. However, the railway lines run through sparsely populated rural areas, making them vulnerable to theft.
The authorities have promised to investigate and strengthen infrastructure security.
