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At least four dead and scores injured after train derails in Spain

A dozen people were also injured in the crash.

Updated 12.14pm

AT LEAST FOUR people died and around 50 were injured when a train came off the tracks in northwestern Spain on its way to Portugal, just as it was approaching a station.

The Portuguese driver was among the dead in the accident, which saw the train hit the wall of a bridge and smash into a pillar, according to the mayor of the nearby town of O Porrino.

Pictures posted online and in local media showed one carriage of the train, which was carrying at least 65 people, lying on its side, the front completely caved in and mangled.

Helicopters, ambulances and fire engines rushed to the scene to attend to the victims, some of whom were thought to be seriously injured.

A passenger said in a video posted on local daily La Voz de Galicia that the train suddenly started wobbling.

“It wouldn’t stop. I was sitting down and I fell to the ground,” she said. ”And then the train stopped. It was that quick.”

Ramon Gonzalez, a witness interviewed by Spanish television who works in the station cafeteria near the accident, said there was a “very strong bang.”

It was full of black smoke … It’s a straight line, the train was due to stop in 50 metres, so this isn’t normal. There are still some injured here but not very serious, the seriously injured were quickly evacuated.

‘Very straight line’

The train was travelling from the Galician town of Vigo to the city of Porto in Portugal when the accident happened near O Porrino.

Manuel Carrera, deputy mayor of O Porrino, said four people had died in the accident.

Adif, the company that manages railways in Spain and is in charge of the tracks, said the accident happened around 9.30am local time just before arriving into the station.

“It’s a very straight line,” a spokeswoman said.

“There isn’t bad visibility there, it emerges from a curb,” Eva Garcia de la Torre, Mayor of O Porrino, told the Cadena Ser radio.

She added that the train looked old but the reason of the derailment has yet to be determined.

Spain’s railway company Renfe said the train and the driver were both Portuguese, adding that railway traffic had been suspended in the area.

Galicia was also the scene of one of Spain’s worst rail disasters in 2013, when around 80 people were killed and another 144 injured after a train slammed into a concrete wall on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela.

© – AFP 2016

Read: Hundreds evacuated from popular Spanish resort as crews battle wildfire >

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    Mute Suzie Sunsine
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    May 13th 2015, 3:45 PM

    And this is how the halawa’s were able to get most of the footage taken down too .

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    Mute Scarr
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    May 13th 2015, 4:12 PM

    I dont think that’s accurate. The ruling is that a result for the footage wouldn’t be shown – if you have a site with the footage in question playing on it Google cannot interfere with that, it may not list your site in the search results.
    Having said that,your site would appear if you searched Google.com

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    May 13th 2015, 4:45 PM

    Could you not use a different search engine to find info…..(shudders at the thought)

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    May 13th 2015, 5:50 PM

    I’m so glad I had my teenage years in the 90′s, no incriminating evidence on the internet :)-

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    May 13th 2015, 3:39 PM

    I tried to play the right to be forgotten card when I missed my girlfriends birthday this year, didn’t work out so well. Damn you Google!!

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    May 13th 2015, 4:04 PM

    Ridiculous ruling exposing how far behind technology the law is

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    May 13th 2015, 3:36 PM

    …and the snakes slither for cover

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    May 14th 2015, 7:06 AM

    What’s needed isn’t a right to be forgotten. What’s needed is a right to have actions deemed irrelevant after time. Much as we cannot discriminate as to age, sex or race, maybe we should add “old mistakes” to that list.

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