Spain's transport minister resigns over Urda train crash

Spain's transport minister, Óscar Puente, resigned Tuesday over the train crash at Urda, in Toledo province, where two high-speed trains collided on Oct. 28. He announced it to the Permanent Deputation of Congress and also gave up heading the Socialist ticket in Valladolid for the Nov. 29 general election.

Toledo's Institute of Legal Medicine received 69 bodies from the crash. Puente spoke of "political dignity" and said he had not warned Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez or his staff before going public. He borrowed a line from Jorge Coelho, the Portuguese minister who quit in 2001 after the Entre-os-Rios bridge collapse: "La culpa no puede morir soltera," or blame cannot die single. A minister cannot stay on after two serious accidents in under a year, Puente said. The earlier one was at Adamuz, in Córdoba, in January.

Sánchez told Spain's head of state on Wednesday that First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo will take over Transport on an interim basis until the election. A royal decree in a special edition of the official gazette will formalize it, Sánchez said in his remarks. Puente's exit, he added, "ayuda a que España recupere la confianza," helps Spain regain trust, and Cuerpo will carry on the reforms Puente started.

Puente had ruled out resigning on Oct. 30, and Sánchez had turned down his offer to step aside. The conservative Popular Party and the far-right Vox demanded his exit, and Vox took a complaint to the Supreme Court. The Catalan separatist ERC and the Basque PNV called for accountability. That same day Puente blamed a failure at the Atocha control center. The official cause has not been determined.

The resignation comes less than four weeks before voters go to the polls, leaving the railways, shaken by two deadly crashes, without a minister of their own. Cuerpo will hold both portfolios until Nov. 29.