Spanish police opened an investigation on Monday after thefts of copper cables halted high-speed trains from Madrid to the south, leaving 1000’s of passengers trapped in trains or stranded at stations.
The disruption befell on a busy day as travellers had been returning dwelling after a protracted weekend in Madrid and earlier than the beginning on Tuesday of a week-long annual truthful within the southern metropolis of Seville, a serious vacationer draw.
It got here per week after a blackout in Spain and neighbouring Portugal additionally introduced trains to a halt on the Spanish high-speed rail community, the second longest on the planet after China’s. No agency trigger for the outage has but emerged.
The transport ministry mentioned the cable theft befell on Sunday within the central province of Toledo at 5 factors inside just a few kilometres of one another on the high-speed line linking Madrid and Seville.
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The theft disrupted journey between Madrid, Seville, Malaga, Valencia and the southern metropolis of Granada, affecting greater than 10,000 passengers and at the very least 30 trains.
Service was steadily returning to regular on Monday.
Transport Minister Óscar Puente known as the cable theft a “severe act of sabotage” in a publish on X.
“It was fairly a coordinated motion. Whoever did it knew what they had been going for,” he added.
Spain’s Civil Guard police power has opened a probe into the “theft of copper cabling” to “make clear what occurred and determine these accountable”, the inside ministry mentioned on social media.
The value of copper has soared lately, triggering thefts of cables that use the metallic in prepare and telecommunications networks around the globe.
The top of Spain’s principal opposition Common Occasion, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, mentioned photographs of “1000’s of Spaniards trapped on trains” with out water had been “unbecoming of the fourth largest financial system within the eurozone”.
