Subway derailment in Spain kills 41

VALENCIA, Spain — A subway train accelerated, shuddered and flipped off the tracks Monday in the Mediterranean port of Valencia, killing at least 41 passengers and injuring 47 in one of Spain's worst rail accidents, officials and witnesses said.

Regional authorities and a witness said the train was going too fast and one of its wheels broke into pieces, derailing the first car, which overturned. Victims were strewn in the tunnel. Officials did not say if the second car derailed.

Rescue workers hustled bloodied, sooty survivors from the tunnel. Anguished relatives cried out in grief and drew each other close as they waited outside the local morgue. The accident brought back memories of the 2004 terrorist attack on Madrid commuter trains that killed 191 people.

Authorities ruled out terrorism but have not determined the cause of the crash.

Justice Ministry official Rosa Sanchez told The Associated Press that at least 41 people were killed and all but eight had been identified. She said that the driver was among those killed. Officials earlier said mistakenly that the driver was not seriously hurt.

Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero cut short a visit to India. He was to attend a memorial today.

It was the second accident on Valencia's No. 1 line in less than a year. A September collision involving three trains injured at least 30 people.

Jorge Alvarez, secretary-general of the Independent Railway Union, said it was too early to blame human error for Monday's tragedy. He said his union repeatedly warned of safety problems on Valencia's 18-year-old subway system, particularly the No. 1 line.

"The train began to go faster than usual and started to move from one side to the other," Cesar Hernandez Nunez, 21, a student traveling in the second car, told the newspaper El Mundo. "Right after that it was chaos."

Vicente Rambla of the regional Interior Ministry said 12 of the 47 injured were hospitalized. Two of the injured were in critical condition, local media reported.