A look at some of Europe’s deadliest train accidents in recent years comes amid a fresh derailment in southern Spain that authorities say has killed at least 39 people and left more than 150 injured.
The incident is a reminder of how severe rail crashes can be, even as major railway accidents have decreased since 2010, according to the European Union. Rail travel across the continent remains a common option for many residents and tourists.
The AP roundup highlighted a deadly derailment in September 2025 in Lisbon, where a street car derailed and crashed into a building, killing 16 people and injuring 21. A preliminary report into the Lisbon funicular crash found that an underground cable acting as a counterweight between two tram cars was unsuitable for use and broke.
In February 2023, a passenger train in northern Greece carrying hundreds of people collided at high speed with an oncoming freight train. Authorities said the crash killed 57 people, and an investigative report blamed human error, outdated infrastructure and major systemic failures.
The roundup also pointed to an accident in July 2016 in southern Italy’s Puglia region, when two commuter trains collided head-on between towns. It said an investigation found an error of communication between the stations that each train had departed from, leaving 31 people dead and scores injured.
Another case cited was a July 2013 commuter crash in Spain near Santiago de Compostela. The AP report said the train hurtled off the rails, killing 80 people and injuring 145, and that an investigation showed it was traveling at 179 kph on a stretch with an 80 kph speed limit when it left the tracks and smashed into a wall.
Other accidents in the AP list included a February 2010 crash just outside Brussels, when two commuter trains slammed into each other after one ran a red light. That disaster killed 19 people and injured 171, described as Belgium’s worst train crash.
The roundup cited a June 2009 incident in Italy in which a freight train carrying gas derailed at Viareggio station near Lucca and exploded, killing 32 people. It said poorly maintained axles were blamed.
The list also included a July 2006 subway crash in Valencia involving a train traveling at excessive speed in an underground tunnel. It said 43 people died and scores more were injured, and that it took 13 years for a court to find four managers of the city’s subway system guilty of negligent manslaughter for not taking necessary safety measures.
It further described a January 2006 Montenegro crash outside Podgorica, where the failure of a braking system caused a train to derail and plunge into a ravine. The AP report said 45 people were killed, including five children, and a further 184 were injured, calling it Montenegro’s worst train disaster in its history.
In November 2000, the AP roundup cited a fire on an Austrian funicular railway in Kaprun, saying a cable car caught fire in a mountain tunnel and killed 155 people. It said those who died were skiers and snowboarders heading to the slopes of the Kitzsteinhorn mountain.
The European incidents list also reached back to October 1999, when a train leaving London’s Paddington station went through a red light and crashed into an incoming high-speed train, killing 31 people and injuring around 400. And it cited a June 1998 Germany disaster at Eschede, when a high-speed train traveling at 200 kph collided with a bridge that collapsed, killing 101 people and injuring a further 100, which the AP report described as Germany’s deadliest postwar rail disaster.