A high-speed train derailed and smashed into another oncoming train in southern Spain on Sunday, pushing the second train off the tracks and down an embankment in a collision that police sources confirmed to Reuters had killed at least 21 people.

The accident happened near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba, about 360 km (223 miles) south of the capital Madrid.

Of the 75 people hospitalised, 15 are in serious condition, the chief of Andalucia’s regional government, Juanma Moreno, told reporters early on Monday.

He said the death toll would likely be more than 20 and warned the number may rise by daylight.

“The forcefulness of the accident has been very strong … we will likely find (more) corpses,” Moreno said, adding that heavy machinery would need to be used to remove the trains’ wrecked metal pieces and try to locate any new victims.

El Pais newspaper reported that the 27-year-old driver of the Madrid-to-Huelva train, the one that was struck, was among the dead.

There were around 400 passengers on the two trains, most of them Spaniards travelling back to and from Madrid after the weekend. It was unclear how many tourists could be onboard as January is not holiday season in Spain, read the report.

“There are many injured. I am still trembling,” Maria San José, 33, a passenger on the Malaga-to-Madrid high-speed train that first derailed, told El Pais.

A passenger on the second train, who was not identified, told public broadcaster TVE: “There were people screaming, their bags fell from the shelves. I was travelling to Huelva in the fourth carriage, the last, luckily.”

The second train, heading to Huelva and operated by state-funded Renfe, was travelling at around 200 km per hour (124 miles/hour) at the moment of impact, reported El Pais.

It was unclear how fast the first train was travelling when it derailed.

The cause for the crash is not yet known, Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente told reporters at a press conference at Atocha station in Madrid, adding it was “really strange” that a derailment should have happened on a straight stretch of track. This section of track was renewed in May, he added.

The accident happened at 7.45 p.m. (1845 GMT), about 10 minutes after the Iryo train left Cordoba heading towards Madrid, authorities said.

“The Iryo 6189 Malaga – (to Madrid) train has derailed from the track at Adamuz, crashing onto the adjacent track. The (Madrid) to Huelva train which was travelling on the adjacent track has also derailed,” Adif, which runs the rail network, said in a social media post.

Puente said most of those killed and injured had been in the first two carriages of the second train, the Renfe Alvia that derailed on impact and plunged down the side of the railway embankment. The first carriage had 37 people on board and the second, 16, he said.

An Iryo-operated train travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed, smashing into the Renfe train travelling from Madrid to Huelva, sending it careering down a railway embankment.

The Iryo train had more than 300 passengers on board, while the Renfe train had around 100.

Paco Carmona, Cordoba fire chief, told TVE that while the Iryo had been evacuated within hours of the accident, the Renfe carriages were badly damaged, with twisted metal and seats.

“There are still people trapped. The operation is concentrating on getting people out of areas which are very narrow,” he said. “We have to remove the bodies to reach anyone who is still alive. It is proving to be a complicated task.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cleared his schedule for Monday to address the tragedy, while the King and Queen were following the developments with concern, a spokesperson said.

Foreign embassies sent text messages to staff asking them to confirm they were safe, Reuters reported.

Adamuz Mayor Rafael Moreno told El Pais that he was among the first to reach the crash site alongside the local police and saw what he believed to be a badly lacerated body several metres from the accident site.

“The scene is horrific,” he said. “I don’t think they were on the same track, but it’s not clear. Now the mayors and residents of the area are focused on helping the passengers.”

Local television images showed a reception centre set up for passengers in Adamuz, a town of 5,000 people, with locals bringing food and blankets as nighttime temperatures hovered around 42 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius).

Tearful passengers disembarking from the bus spoke briefly to local press before being guided inside.

Salvador Jimenez, a journalist for TVE who was on board the Iryo train, shared images showing the nose of that train’s rear carriage lying on its side, with evacuated passengers sitting on its upturned side.

Jimenez told TVE by phone from beside the stricken trains that passengers had used emergency hammers to smash the windows and climb out, and they had seen two people taken out of the overturned carriages on stretchers.

Iryo is a private rail operator, majority-owned by Italian state-controlled railway group Ferrovie dello Stato. The train involved was a Freccia 1000 train which was travelling between Malaga and Madrid, a spokesperson for Ferrovie dello Stato said.

The company said in a statement that it deeply regretted what had happened and had activated all emergency protocols to work closely with the relevant authorities.

Renfe said the derailment of its train had been caused by the Iryo train derailing into its path, adding that emergency services were still recovering passengers.

Renfe said its president was travelling to the crash site and that it was working to support passengers and their families. Adif has suspended all rail services between Madrid and Andalucia.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused U.S. President Donald Trump of inciting weeks of unrest across Iran, as rights groups report that more than 3,000 people have been killed in the country’s deadliest protests in years.

Speaking in Tehran on Saturday, Khamenei said Washington bore responsibility for the violence and destruction that accompanied the demonstrations, which began late last month over economic hardship and escalated into nationwide calls for the end of clerical rule.

“The U.S. president is criminally responsible for the casualties, damage and slander inflicted on the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said, according to state media.

The protests, which erupted on December 28, spread rapidly across major cities and towns. Khamenei acknowledged that “several thousand” people had died, blaming the violence on foreign enemies, including the United States and Israel, whom he accused of orchestrating chaos, arson and attacks on public property.

A U.S.-based rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), said it had verified 3,090 deaths, including nearly 2,900 protesters, as well as more than 22,000 arrests. Iranian authorities have not confirmed those figures.

Trump has repeatedly warned Tehran against executing detained protesters, threatening “very strong action” if mass hangings were carried out.

On Friday, he posted on social media thanking Iran’s leaders for allegedly calling off executions, a claim Iranian officials denied, saying there had been “no plan to hang people.”

Responding indirectly, Khamenei said Iran would not seek war but would not allow “domestic or international criminals” to go unpunished.

In a separate interview, Trump called for “new leadership in Iran” and urged an end to Khamenei’s 37-year rule. He has also spoken favorably of exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, while expressing doubts about his ability to rally sufficient support inside Iran.

Iranian authorities say arrests have followed extensive intelligence operations targeting what they describe as “rioters, terrorists and mercenaries.”

State media reported that thousands had been detained, including alleged “ringleaders” accused of coordinating unrest from abroad.

Last week, Iran’s prosecutor general warned that detainees would face severe punishment, describing those involved as mohareb — an Islamic legal term meaning “waging war against God,” which carries the death penalty under Iranian law.

The crackdown appears to have largely quelled the protests, according to residents and state media, though access to independent information remains limited.

Internet blackouts, briefly eased early on Saturday, were later reimposed, according to monitoring group NetBlocks, which said nationwide connectivity continued to “flatline” as the shutdown entered its tenth day.

Residents in some hard-hit areas said the worst violence occurred earlier in the week, as security forces moved to reassert control.

Israeli officials have publicly expressed support for Iranian opposition figures in recent weeks, with one minister acknowledging the presence of Israeli operatives inside Iran, though denying any direct effort to overthrow the leadership.

Iranian authorities continue to blame foreign influence for the unrest, while rights groups warn that the true scale of casualties may be difficult to verify amid arrests, censorship and ongoing internet restrictions.

A Ukrainian delegation is en route to the U.S. for talks on security guarantees and a post-war recovery package, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday, expressing hope the documents could be signed on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.

During the talks, Kyiv’s team also hopes to get clarity from the U.S. on the Russian stance towards U.S.-backed diplomatic efforts to end the nearly four-year war, Zelenskiy told a news conference in Kyiv alongside Czech President Petr Pavel.

“I think we have worked well with the American side, we are just not on the same side on some issues,” Zelenskiy said of the negotiations with Washington.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Reuters earlier this week that he may meet with Zelenskiy at the WEF, a meeting which the Ukrainian leader has publicly sought.

Zelenskiy said that Ukraine had completed its part of the work on the documents outlining a “prosperity package” to unlock money for Ukraine’s costly post-war recovery, as well as on U.S. security guarantees designed to stop a future Russian attack. Ukrainian officials have said the country will need $800 billion for its post-war reconstruction.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Olha Stefanishyna, said senior Ukrainian officials would take part in bilateral talks on the two key agreements on Friday in Miami.

“The purpose of the visit is to refine these agreements with American partners,” Stefanishyna said in a post on Facebook, adding they “may be signed … in Davos.”

Ukraine’s delegation will include the head of Zelenskiy’s office, Kyrylo Budanov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, Rustem Umerov, and the head of Zelenskiy’s parliamentary faction, Davyd Arakhamia, she added.

Washington has pushed Ukraine to agree to a peace framework that it will then present to Moscow, while Kyiv and its European allies have sought to ensure that Ukraine will not be attacked again by Russia in future.

“Ultimatums are not, in my view, a workable model for democratic relations between countries,” Zelenskiy said, without specifying to what he was referring.

Trump, who has often criticised Zelenskiy, said on Wednesday that Russia was ready for a peace deal and that he saw the Ukrainian leader as the obstacle to peace, an assessment that stands in stark contrast with that of European allies.

On Friday, Zelenskiy said Russia was stalling peace efforts, and cited Moscow’s recent strikes on Ukraine’s energy system as proof of Moscow’s real intentions.

“Each of these strikes against our energy sector and our cities quite clearly shows Russia’s real interests and intentions: they are not interested in agreements, but in the further destruction of Ukraine,” he posted on social media after the news conference.

At the news conference, Zelenskiy also pushed for more air defence ammunition to protect Ukraine’s power grid. He said that until a new aid package had arrived on Friday morning, several air defence systems had been left without missiles.

“We need to fight for these (aid) packages with blood, with people’s lives,” he told reporters.