* Driver investigated, speeding said to be cause
* Tragedy occurred on eve of major religious festival
* One of Europe's worst rail disasters
* Media says driver boasted of his speed
By Teresa Medrano and Miguel Vidal
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain, July 25 (Reuters) - Thedriver of a Spanish train was under investigation on Thursdayafter at least 80 people died when it derailed on a sharp bendand caught fire in a spectacular accident which an officialsource said was caused by excessive speed.
The eight-carriage high speed train came off the tracks justoutside the pilgrimage centre of Santiago de Compostela innorthwestern Spain on Wednesday night. It was one of Europe'sworst rail disasters.
The source had knowledge of the official investigation intoa crash which brought misery to Santiago on Thursday, the daywhen it should have celebrated one of Europe's biggest Christianfestivals. Authorities cancelled festivities as the city wentinto mourning.
Dramatic video footage from a security camera showed thetrain, with 247 people on board, hurtling into a concrete wallat the side of the track as carriages jack-knifed and the engineoverturned.
One local official described the aftermath of the crash, onthe eve of one of Europe's biggest Christian festivals, as likea scene from hell, with bodies strewn next to the tracks.
The impact was so huge one carriage flew several metres intothe air and landed on the other side of the high concretebarrier.
There were 94 injured, 35 of those were in a seriouscondition, including four children, the deputy head of theregional government said on Thursday.
"We heard a massive noise and we went down the tracks. Ihelped get a few injured and bodies out of the train. I wentinto one of the cars but I'd rather not tell you what I sawthere," Ricardo Martinez, a 47-year old baker from Santiago deCompostela, told Reuters.
The train driver was under formal police investigation, aspokeswoman for Galicia's Supreme Court told Reuters, withoutnaming him. The train had two drivers and one was in hospital,the Galicia government said.
It was not immediately clear which driver was underinvestigation or in hospital. The train, operated by state-ownedcompany Renfe, was built by Bombardier and Talgo and was aroundfive years old. It had almost the maximum number of passengers.
Newspaper accounts cited witnesses as saying one driver,Francisco Jose Garzon, who had helped rescue victims, shoutedinto a phone: "I've derailed! What do I do?".
The 52-year-old had been a train driver for 30 years, aRenfe spokeswoman said. Many newspapers published excerpts fromhis Facebook account where he was reported to have boasted ofdriving trains at high speed. The page was taken offline onThursday and the reports could not be verified.
El Pais newspaper said one of the drivers told the railwaystation by radio after being trapped in his cabin that the trainentered the bend at 190 kilometres per hour (120 mph). Anofficial source said the speed limit on that stretch of twintrack, laid in 2011, was 80 kph.
"We're only human! We're only human!" the driver told thestation, the newspaper said, citing sources close to theinvestigation. "I hope there are no dead, because this will fallon my conscience."
Investigators were trying to urgently establish why thetrain was going so fast and why failsafe security devices tokeep speed within permitted limits had not worked.
Spain's rail safety record is better than the Europeanaverage, ranking 18th out of 27 countries in terms of railwaydeaths per kilometres travelled, the European Railway Agencysaid. There were 218 train accidents in Spain between 2008-2011,well below the European Union average of 426 for the sameperiod, the agency said.
MANGLED WRECKAGE
Cranes were still pulling out mangled debris on Thursdaymorning, 12 hours after the crash. Emergency workers had stoppedtheir search for survivors, the court spokeswoman said.
Firefighters called off a strike to help with the disaster,while hospital staff, many operating on reduced salaries becauseof spending cuts in recession-hit Spain, worked overtime to tendthe injured.
The disaster happened at 8.41 p.m. (1841 GMT) on the eve ofa festival dedicated to St James, one of Jesus' 12 disciples,whose remains are said to rest in the city's centuries-oldcathedral.
The apostle's shrine is the destination of the famous ElCamino de Santiago pilgrimage across the Pyrenees, which hasbeen followed by Christians since the Middle Ages.
U.S. citizens were amongst the injured, the U.S. embassysaid in a statement and at least one British citizen waswounded, the British embassy spokesman said. Several othernationalities were believed to be among the passengers.
One of the train drivers had been sedated, said Juan JesusGarcia, the secretary general of the Renfe train drivers union,adding he hoped to visit him later on Thursday.
Neighbours ran to the site to help emergency workers tend tothe wounded. Ana Taboada, a 29-year-old hospital worker, was oneof the first on the scene.
"When the dust lifted I saw corpses. I didn't make it downto the track, because I was helping the passengers that werecoming up the embankment," she told Reuters. "I saw a man tryingto break a window with a stone to help those inside get out."
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago deCompostela, the capital of Galicia region, visited the site andthe main hospital on Thursday. He declared three days ofofficial national mourning for the victims of the disaster.
Passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station thetrain approached the curve at high speed, twisted and wagonspiled up one on top of the other.
PASSENGERS SQUASHED
"A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried tosqueeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and werealised the train was burning. ... I was in the second wagonand there was fire. ... I saw corpses," he said.
Both Renfe and state-owned Adif, which is in charge of thetracks, had opened an investigation into the cause of thederailment, Renfe said.
The official source said no statement would be maderegarding the cause until the black boxes of the train wereexamined.
Clinics in Santiago de Compostela were overwhelmed withpeople flocking to give blood, while hotels organised free roomsfor relatives. Madrid sent forensic scientists and hospitalstaff to the scene on special flights.
The train was travelling from Madrid to Ferrol on theGalician coast when it derailed, Renfe said in a statement. Itleft Madrid on time and was travelling on schedule, aspokeswoman said.
Allianz Seguros, owned by Germany's Allianz, ownsthe insurance contract for loss suffered by Renfe passengers, acompany spokeswoman told Reuters. The contract does not coverRenfe's trains. The company had sent experts to the scene, shesaid.
The disaster stirred memories of a train bombing in Madridin 2004, carried out by Islamist militants, that killed 191people, although officials do not suspect an attack this time.
Spain is struggling to emerge from a long-running recessionmarked by government-driven austerity to bring its deeplyindebted finances into order.
But Adif, the state railways infrastructure company, toldReuters no budget cuts had been implemented on maintenance ofthe line, which connects La Coruna, Santiago de Compostela andOurense and was inaugurated in 2011.
It said more than 100 million euros a year were being spenton track maintenance in Spain.
Wednesday's derailment was one of the worst rail accidentsin Europe over the past 25 years.
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