MADRID (Reuters) -Passengers were left stranded in train carriages and stations overnight into Tuesday morning after a power cable failure cut high-speed lines between Madrid and Andalusia.
Around 20 trains were blocked on the tracks or unable to depart on Monday evening, with approximately 10 more cancelled on Tuesday morning in Madrid and southern Spanish cities including Seville, where global leaders are attending a United Nations conference on development financing.
Traffic between the towns of Yeles and La Sagra, about 40 kilometres south of Madrid, was suspended at 8.30 pm (0630 GMT) when a catenary cable malfunctioned, a spokesperson for state-owned railway infrastructure operator ADIF said.
The cause of the malfunction was unknown, he said, and ADIF has since postponed the resumption of service four times.
In its latest statement, the company said trains between Madrid and Andalusian cities were cancelled until further notice.
ADIF called on regional emergency services to service and evacuate stranded passengers, some of whom spent hours stuck inside the trains as a blistering heatwave scorches the country.
The high-speed network has rapidly expanded in Spain as part of a government push to decarbonise public transportation.
The network connects almost all the country’s big cities but is vulnerable to cable incidents as it crosses large swathes of scarcely populated areas.
A copper cable theft paralysed the same line for more than 12 hours in early May.
Three operators service the line, state-owned former monopoly Renfe, Ouigo, a unit of French state train operator SNCF, and Iryo, which is owned by a consortium including Italy’s Trenitalia.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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