Spain’s Transport Minister Quits After Two Deadly Train Crashes Kill 115
Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, has resigned after two deadly high-speed train crashes this year killed 115 people combined, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed on Wednesday, 4 November 2026.
Puente announced on Tuesday night that he was stepping down, six days after the second crash, near the town of Urda in central Spain, killed 69 people on 28 October. His departure leaves Sánchez’s government without one of its most combative ministers less than four weeks before an early parliamentary election on 29 November.
Sánchez said on Wednesday that his deputy, Carlos Cuerpo, who is also Spain’s economy minister, would provisionally run the Transport Ministry. Reuters reported that Sánchez praised Cuerpo’s record, saying: “Cuerpo has shown in this legislature an enormous capacity for management and integrity.”
A decision taken within minutes, announced days later
Puente, 57, had previously ruled out resigning, but said he had in fact decided to step down within minutes of learning of the Urda crash. He told only his family at first, keeping even Sánchez in the dark, and chose to remain in office until the immediate emergency response was under way.
He said he stayed on while preliminary investigations began and the first measures to compensate victims and improve rail safety were put in place. BusinessWorld reported that Puente announced his resignation on Tuesday, hours after laying out the government’s emergency aid package for victims and new safety measures.
“A transport minister in a country like Spain cannot continue in office with two accidents of this severity in less than a year,” Puente said.
His resignation will only become effective once it is published in the official state gazette. He also said he would not stand as a candidate in the upcoming election on 29 November.
Two crashes on the same line
The Urda crash was the second deadly accident this year on the same Madrid-Seville line. Several trains were automatically stopped last Wednesday after a signalling system failure, after which central controllers in Madrid took over, according to the account of the crash published by BusinessWorld.
The two disasters together have killed 115 people, a toll that has intensified scrutiny of Spain’s rail network and of the government’s handling of safety. Puente faced a tense four-hour grilling by lawmakers from a caretaker parliament body on Tuesday night, in which most parties demanded he face responsibility for the two rail disasters, Reuters reported.
The resignation comes at a delicate moment for Sánchez, whose Socialists are fighting an election campaign without one of their most prominent voices. Puente was known as a combative defender of the government, but also as a polarising figure, and his exit removes a familiar presence from the campaign trail.
What happens next
Cuerpo will take provisional charge of the ministry alongside his economy portfolio while the government prepares for the election. Investigators are still establishing the full sequence of events behind the Urda crash, including the role of the signalling failure, and victims’ families are awaiting the delivery of the promised aid package.
Rail safety is now likely to feature prominently in the final weeks of the campaign, as opposition parties press the government on what changed after the first crash this year — and why a second disaster on the same line was not prevented.
The week has also brought major policy shifts elsewhere, from US aid to Israel to trade preferences for South Africa and Rwanda, as well as the planned Ukraine-Russia talks in Abu Dhabi, underscoring how quickly governments are being forced to respond to fast-moving events at home and abroad.
For Spain, the immediate question is whether a change at the top of the Transport Ministry can restore confidence in a rail system that millions of passengers rely on every day — before voters deliver their own verdict on 29 November.
