A train travelling between Spain and France with 426 passengers derailed in the north-west Spanish region of Palencia on Monday, killing five people and injuring 36, officials said. It was too early to say what caused the crash, they said, but saw no initial sign of terrorism.
Witnesses said the train's six carriages came off the tracks while going around a bend near Villada station, about 30 km (19 miles) north-west of the regional capital, Palencia.
One carriage hit a bridge pillar, officials said.
"Five dead is the official figure. We know people are giving another figure, but we can't confirm it," said Agustin Manrique, a spokesman for the Palencia regional government.
The head of the regional government initially told reporters 64 people were hurt in the derailment, but later corrected the number to 36, with four passengers seriously injured.
"The carriage started to move from right to left, all the windows broke and bags were flying everywhere until it finally stopped.
There was a lot of smoke. I thought there had been a fire," an unnamed passenger told Spanish state radio.
Emergency authorities set up a field hospital near the site and four helicopters transported injured to nearby hospitals.
"It seems the first carriage derailed, collided or hit a bridge, and then it took another (carriage) with it. It's an extremely serious accident," Villada's mayor Julian Garcia Corrales told the Ser radio station.
The officials said the train was travelling between the Spanish city of Vigo and the French border town of Hendaye. The border area is part of the Basque region.
Basque ETA separatist guerrillas are observing a cease-fire but said this month talks with the government were in crisis.
In March 2004, 191 people were killed and more than 1,800 people were wounded in simultaneous bomb blasts on packed rush-hour trains at three stations in the Spanish capital, Madrid. The Socialist government blamed the attacks on al Qaeda linked militants.
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