A train driver suspected of causing Spain's worst train disaster for decades has been formally accused of reckless homicide, the country's interior minister said. 
 
 Investigators are looking into possible failings by 52-year-old Francisco José Garzón Amo after the Madrid to Ferrol service derailed on Wednesday night as it approached the city of Santiago de Compostela. 
 
 He has now left hospital after receiving treatment for chest trauma and been taken to a police station, but has so far refused to answer officers' questions and is expected to be interrogated by a judge. He has until Sunday evening to make a statement if he wishes to do so. 
 
 Visiting Santiago, the Spanish interior minister, Jorge Fernández Díaz, said there were "reasonable grounds to think he [Garzón] may have a potential liability". 
 
 "He has been detained since 7:40pm on Thursday for the alleged crime of reckless homicide," Fernández said. 
 
 The president of the autonomous region of Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said forensic science units hoped to name three of the 78 victims who have not yet been identified in the next three days. 
 
 Núñez also said a public funeral for the 78 dead would be held at Santiago cathedral on Monday at 7pm local time. 
 
 One Briton was among the 168 injured passengers, while 30 people are still believed to be in a critical condition. 
 
 In addition to people from all over Spain, nationals from the United States, Mexico and Algeria are believed to be among the dead. 
 
 Authorities are in possession of the train's so-called "black box", which is expected to shed further light on the cause of the disaster. 
 
 Adif, Spain's railway agency, confirmed that a high-tech automatic braking programme was installed on the track for most of the journey but stops just five kilometres (three miles) south of where the crash occurred. 
 
 From that point on the driver has sole control of the brakes. 
 
 "Regardless of the system in place, the drivers know the speed limits. If these are respected, an accident should not take place," a spokeswoman said. 
 
 Early indications suggested the train was travelling at around 118mph – more than twice the 50mph speed limit – when it crashed while heading into a curve. 
 
 Gonzalo Ferre Moltó, the president of Adif, said the driver should have started slowing the train four kilometres before reaching a dangerous bend that train drivers had been told to respect. 
 
 "Four kilometres before the accident happened he already had warnings that he had to begin slowing his speed, because as soon as he exits the tunnel he needs to be travelling at 80kph," Ferre said. 
 
 According to reports in the Spanish media, after realising the magnitude of the disaster Garzón said: "I fucked up, I want to die." 
 
 In March 2012, the employee of Spanish train operator Renfe allegedly posted boasts on Facebook about how fast he was driving a train and joked about racing past police. 
 
 He is believed to have taken control of the train from a second driver about 65 miles south of Santiago. 
 
 Wednesday's train crash is the worst Spain has experienced since a three-train accident in a tunnel in the northern León province in 1944. 
 
 The latest incident comes less than two weeks after six people were killed and scores injured in a train crash just south of Paris. ||||| SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain The driver of a Spanish train that derailed, killing at least 80 people, was under police guard in hospital on Thursday after the dramatic accident which an official source said was caused by excessive speed. 
 
 The eight-carriage train came off the tracks, hit a wall and caught fire just outside the pilgrimage destination Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain on Wednesday night. It was one of Europe's worst rail disasters. 
 
 The source had knowledge of the official investigation into a crash which brought misery to Santiago on Thursday, the day when it should have celebrated one of Europe's biggest Christian festivals. Authorities canceled festivities as the city went into mourning. 
 
 The Galicia regional supreme court said in a statement the judge investigating the accident had ordered police to take a statement from the driver. 
 
 He was being formally investigated and under police guard but not under arrest, the court said. He was in hospital but it was not clear what kind of injuries he had suffered. 
 
 Video footage from a security camera showed the train, with 247 people on board, hurtling into a concrete wall at the side of the track as carriages jack-knifed and the engine overturned. 
 
 One local official described the aftermath of the crash as like a scene from hell, with bodies strewn next to the tracks. 
 
 The impact was so huge one carriage flew several meters into the air and landed on the other side of a high concrete barrier. 
 
 Around 94 people were injured, 35 of them, including four children, in a serious condition, the deputy head of the regional government said. 
 
 "We heard a massive noise and we went down the tracks. I helped get a few injured and bodies out of the train. I went into one of the cars but I'd rather not tell you what I saw there," Ricardo Martinez, a 47-year old baker from Santiago de Compostela, told Reuters. 
 
 Newspaper accounts cited witnesses as saying the driver, Francisco Jose Garzon, who had helped rescue victims, shouted into a phone: "I've derailed! What do I do?". 
 
 The 52-year-old had been a train driver for 30 years, said a spokeswoman for Renfe, the state train company. 
 
 A court source told Reuters there was one driver on the train. Previously, a Galicia government source had said there were two. 
 
 TRAIN HIT BEND AT SPEED 
 
 El Pais newspaper said the driver told the railway station by radio after being trapped in his cabin that the train entered the bend at 190 kilometers per hour (120 mph). An official source said the speed limit on that stretch of twin track, laid in 2011, was 80 kph. 
 
 "We're only human! We're only human!" the driver told the station, the newspaper said, citing sources close to the investigation. "I hope there are no dead, because this will weigh on my conscience." 
 
 Investigators were trying to find out why the train was going so fast and why security devices to keep speed within permitted limits had not slowed the train. 
 
 Operated by state-owned company Renfe, the train was built by Bombardier and Talgo and was around five years old. It had almost the maximum number of passengers. 
 
 Spain's rail safety record is better than the European average, ranking 18th out of 27 countries in terms of railway deaths per kilometers traveled, the European Railway Agency said. There were 218 train accidents in Spain between 2008-2011, well below the EU average of 426 for the same period. 
 
 Firefighters called off a strike to help with the disaster, while hospital staff, many operating on reduced salaries because of spending cuts in recession-hit Spain, worked overtime to tend the injured. 
 
 The disaster happened at 8.41 p.m. (2:41 p.m. ET) on the eve of a festival dedicated to St. James, one of Jesus's 12 disciples, whose remains are said to rest in Santiago's centuries-old cathedral. 
 
 The apostle's shrine is the destination of the famous El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across the Pyrenees, which has been followed by Christians since the Middle Ages. 
 
 "The main mass (in the cathedral) was transformed from a mass of joy into a mass of mourning," said Italian pilgrim Irene Valsangiacomo. 
 
 KING, PM VISIT 
 
 One U.S. citizen died in the crash and five were injured, the State Department said in Washington. Mexico said one of its nationals was among the dead. 
 
 At least one British citizen was injured, a British embassy spokesman said. People from several other countries were believed to be among the passengers. 
 
 People living nearby ran to the site to help emergency workers tend to the wounded. Ana Taboada, a 29-year-old hospital worker, was one of the first on the scene. 
 
 "When the dust lifted I saw corpses. I didn't make it down to the track, because I was helping the passengers that were coming up the embankment," she told Reuters. "I saw a man trying to break a window with a stone to help those inside get out." 
 
 Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia region, visited the site and the main hospital on Thursday. He declared three days of official national mourning for the victims of the disaster. 
 
 King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia also went to Santiago and visited the injured in hospital. 
 
 "All of Spain is united in grief with the bereaved families," the king said. 
 
 Both Renfe and state-owned Adif, which is in charge of the tracks, opened an investigation into the derailment. 
 
 Passenger Ricardo Montesco told Cadena Ser radio station the train approached the curve at high speed, twisted and the carriages piled up one on top of the other. 
 
 "A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realized the train was burning. ... I was in the second carriage and there was fire. ... I saw corpses," he said. 
 
 Clinics in Santiago de Compostela were overwhelmed with people flocking to give blood, while hotels organized free rooms for relatives. Madrid sent forensic scientists and hospital staff to the scene on special flights. 
 
 Allianz Seguros, owned by Germany's Allianz, owns the insurance contract for loss suffered by Renfe passengers, a company spokeswoman told Reuters. The contract does not cover Renfe's trains. The company had sent experts to the scene. 
 
 The disaster stirred memories of a train bombing in Madrid in 2004, carried out by Islamist militants, that killed 191 people, although officials do not suspect an attack this time. 
 
 Spain is struggling to emerge from a long-running recession marked by government-driven austerity to bring its deeply indebted finances into order. 
 
 But Adif, the state railways infrastructure company, told Reuters no budget cuts had been implemented on maintenance of the line, which connects La Coruna, Santiago de Compostela and Ourense and was inaugurated in 2011. 
 
 It said more than 100 million euros a year were being spent on track maintenance in Spain. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Inmaculada Sanz, Sonya Dowsett, Sarah White, Andres Gonzalez, Blanca Rodriguez, Julien Toyer, Emma Pinedo, Raquel Castillo, Robert Hetz; Writing by Sonya Dowsett and Julien Toyer and Elisabeth O'Leary,; editing by Barry Moody and Andrew Heavens) ||||| Death toll rises to 80, including one American. Train driver who boasted about speeding is under investigation after video shows dramatic derailment. 
 
 Emergency personnel respond to the scene of a train derailment in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on July 24. A train derailed in northwestern Spain on Wednesday night, killing dozens. (Photo: Antonio Hernandez, El correo Gallego/AP) Story Highlights Train from Madrid may have been traveling 89 to 119 mph in 50-mph zone 
 
 All eight carriages left tracks, and four overturned 
 
 Accident happened in Santiago de Compostela in the Galicia region 
 
 The train that derailed on a curve Wednesday night in northwestern Spain may have been traveling at more than twice the speed limit, media outlets reported Thursday. 
 
 The veteran driver, who was injured, is being formally investigated amid reports that he had bragged on Facebook about routinely speeding. Officials said he did not test positive for alcohol or drugs. 
 
 Authorities and rail experts cautioned that speed-control systems might also have failed. 
 
 The Associated Press analyzed video of the crash and said the train was going between 89 mph and 119 mph on the stretch of track that has a limit of about 50 mph. The Spanish newspaper El Mundo also reported that the train may have approached speeds of up to 119 mph before it flew off the tracks and smashed into a retaining wall. 
 
 The U.S. State Department said that one American was among the 80 who died. 
 
 The Galician government said 94 others remained hospitalized, with 31, including four children, in critical condition. Five Americans were among the injured, the State Department said, without releasing details. 
 
 The Reuters news agency reported that the driver, Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, is in police custody in the hospital, where he is being treated for unspecified injuries. He took over the controls from another driver about 65 miles before the crash, said the state railway, Renfe. 
 
 Garzon, 52, has worked for Renfe for 30 years. He became an assistant driver in 2000 and a fully qualified driver in 2003. 
 
 He enjoyed going fast. 
 
 The New York Times reported that until it was deleted Thursday morning, Garzon's Facebook page "included a photograph and exchanges that portrayed a taste for speed, and perhaps even recklessness." 
 
 A March 2012 photo showed a speedometer topped out at 124 mph. "I'm at the limit and I can't go any faster or they will give me a fine," he wrote. 
 
 Responding to a friend's quip about speeding, the Times said, Garzon wrote in all caps: "Imagine what a rush it would be traveling alongside the Civil Guard, and passing them so that their speed traps go off. Hehe, that would be quite a fine for Renfe, hehe." 
 
 Garzon had worked the Madrid-to-Ferrol run for more than a year, Renfe said. His express train Wednesday was carrying 218 passengers when it left the tracks at 8:41 p.m. local time (2:41 p.m. ET) about 2.5 miles from the station at Santiago de Compostela. The train carried five crewmembers. 
 
 One driver who was trapped radioed the rail station that the train was traveling 120 mph when it entered the bend, sources told the Spanish newspaper El Pais. 
 
 "We're only human! We're only human!" the driver reportedly said. "I hope there are no dead, because this will fall on my conscience." 
 
 All eight carriages derailed, and four overturned. TV images showed one car torn apart, another on fire and blanket-covered bodies besides the wrecked carriages. 
 
 Hadley Malcolm hosts USA NOW for July 25, 2013, covering the recent train crash in Spain that killed scores of people. USA TODAY, USA NOW, Kaveh Rezaei, 
 
 "A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realized the train was burning," passenger Ricardo Montesco told radio station Cadena SER. "I was in the second wagon and there was fire. I saw corpses." 
 
 The president of the Galicia region, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, described the scene as "Dante-esque." 
 
 An 18-year Mormon missionary from Utah told the Associated Press he blacked out after the train lifted in the air like a roller coaster. 
 
 Stephen Ward, of Bountiful, found himself caked in blood and heard cries and screams when he came to, thinking it was all a dream. He was discharged Thursday. 
 
 Officials canceled festivities planned for Thursday in Santiago de Compostela to celebrate St James, one of Jesus' 12 apostles whose remains are claimed to buried there. Officials said many of the travelers likely were pilgrims headed to the city, about 60 miles south of Ferrol. 
 
 Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey, who was born in Santiago de Compostola, toured the crash scene Thursday alongside rescue workers and visited the injured and their families at a nearby hospital. He declared three days of official mourning. 
 
 "For a native of Santiago, like me, this is the saddest day," he said. 
 
 King Carlos, the country's head of state, and Queen Sofia also visited the hospital. 
 
 It was Spain's deadliest train accident since 1972, when a train collided with a bus in southwest Spain, killing 86 people and injuring 112. 
 
 Two weeks ago in France, six people died when several cars of a train packed ahead of the Bastille Day holiday in a station outside Paris. Officials blamed a faulty track. 
 
 Contributing: The Associated Press 
 
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 The train company said Thursday that there does not appear to have been a technical fault with the train. 
 
 The train company said Thursday that there does not appear to have been a technical fault with the train. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/17Ff6h4 ||||| 1 of 11. A fireman carries a wounded victim from the wreckage of a train crash near Santiago de Compostela, northwestern Spain, July 24, 2013. 
 
 SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain | 
 
 SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain (Reuters) - The driver of a Spanish train that derailed, killing at least 80 people, was under police guard in hospital on Friday after the accident, which an official source said was caused by excessive speed. 
 
 The eight-carriage train came off the tracks, hit a wall and caught fire just outside the pilgrimage destination Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain on Wednesday night. It was one of Europe's worst rail disasters. 
 
 The source had knowledge of the official investigation into a crash which brought misery to Santiago on Thursday, the day when it should have celebrated one of Europe's biggest Christian festivals. 
 
 A judge in Santiago de Compostela, capital of the northern Spanish region of Galicia, was assigned to investigate the accident. The judge ordered police to question the train's driver, named as 52-year-old Francisco Jose Garzon. 
 
 It was not clear what kind of injuries the driver had suffered. He was not arrested, but he was under a police guard at the hospital and was expected to be questioned on Friday. 
 
 State train company Renfe said the driver was a 30-year veteran of the firm with more than a decade of train driving experience. He had been driving trains on this line for about a year, the firm said. 
 
 The regional government said 95 people were still in hospital, 32 of them, including four children, in a serious condition. Medical experts were still trying to identify 13 of the bodies early on Friday, leaving distraught families to wait for definitive news. 
 
 With the festivities in Santiago cancelled on Thursday, hundreds of people went to the site of the wreck instead, where they watched cranes picking the mangled train carriages off the tracks. 
 
 "My brother-in-law lives close by and was helping pull out people, dead and alive, all night. He's very shaken. I've come now with some friends just to see how it all ends," said Manuel Garcia, one of the onlookers. 
 
 Video footage from a security camera showed the train, with 247 people on board, hurtling into a concrete wall at the side of the track as carriages jack-knifed and the engine overturned. 
 
 The train entered the bend at 190 km per hour (120 mph), according to local media reports. The speed limit on the curve was 80 km per hour (50 mph). 
 
 Investigators were trying to find out why the train was going so fast and why security devices to keep speed within permitted limits had not slowed it down. 
 
 The impact was so huge one carriage flew several meters into the air and landed on the other side of a concrete barrier. Bodies were strewn next to the tracks in the aftermath. 
 
 The dead included a U.S. citizen and a Mexican, and at least one British citizen was injured. 
 
 NATIONAL MOURNING 
 
 Train traffic resumed on Friday morning on the tracks parallel to the where the accident took place. 
 
 Spain's rail safety record is better than the European average, ranking 18th out of 27 countries in terms of railway deaths per kilometre travelled, the European Railway Agency said. There were 218 train accidents in Spain between 2008 and 2011, well below the EU average of 426 for the same period. 
 
 The disaster happened at 8:41 p.m. (1841 GMT) on the eve of a festival dedicated to St. James, one of Jesus's 12 disciples, whose remains are said to rest in Santiago's centuries-old cathedral. 
 
 The apostle's shrine is the destination of the famous El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across the Pyrenees, which has been followed by Christians since the Middle Ages and has had a resurgence in popularity in recent decades. 
 
 Even though the festival was cancelled, pilgrims and tourists formed long lines to see the cathedral on Thursday. 
 
 "It's hard to make sense of a tragedy like this, especially on an occasion that is supposed to be joyous," said Jan Roser, a Catholic priest from Germany who had made the pilgrimage and was in Santiago for the festival. 
 
 Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a native of Galicia, visited the accident site and the main hospital on Thursday. He declared three days of official national mourning. 
 
 King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia also visited the injured in hospital. 
 
 "All of Spain is united in grief with the bereaved families," the king said. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Julien Toyer and Teresa Medrano; Writing by Fiona Ortiz and Julien Toyer; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Susan Fenton) ||||| A Spanish National police officer stands next to wrecked parts of a train at a warehouse in Escravitude, 20 km (12 miles) from Santiago de Compostela, northwestern Spain, July 27, 2013. 
 
 SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain | 
 
 SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain (Reuters) - The driver of a Spanish train that derailed at high speed was taken before a judge on Sunday for questioning as officials try to determine to what degree he was responsible for the deaths of 79 people in the accident. 
 
 Francisco Garzon, 52, has been under the arrest since shortly after the accident on suspicion of reckless homicide, but has yet to be formally charged by a magistrate. 
 
 The experienced driver was travelling at more than twice the 80 km per hour permitted on a curve going into the city of Santiago de Compostela when the train careered off the track and smashed into a wall on Wednesday. 
 
 The death toll from Spain's worst train disaster in decades rose to 79 after one injured person died on Sunday. Seventy people remain in hospital with injuries from the crash, which crumpled the train and set some carriages on fire. Of those, 22 were in critical condition. 
 
 After the accident, Garzon spoke with both the train system control centre and emergency dispatchers, his face covered in blood from a head wound. Spanish newspapers have reported that transcripts of those communications show that he recognized he was going too fast. 
 
 Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez said on Saturday there was sufficient evidence to charge Garzon with reckless homicide. 
 
 Garzon, who was released from hospital on Saturday but remained in police custody, arrived at Santiago de Compostela's main courthouse at 6:15 p.m. on Sunday in a police car with darkened windows. 
 
 It was not clear how long the closed-door hearing with the judge would last. Neither lawyers nor members of Garzon's family could be contacted for comment. 
 
 The judge will investigate the case and will also look at whether the train, the tracks or the security system that slows down the trains were at fault. 
 
 The Alvia train, one of three types of high speed train services that run in Spain, received a full maintenance check on the morning of the journey, the head of state train company RENFE said, and security systems in place were in good shape. 
 
 "As far as we know the train was in perfect condition when it set off on its journey," Julio Gomez-Pomar told newspaper ABC. 
 
 The Alvia trains run both on traditional tracks, where drivers must heed warning systems to reduce speed, and on high-speed tracks where a more sophisticated security system will automatically slow down trains that are going too fast. 
 
 At the section of the track where the accident happened, it was up to the driver to respond to prompts to slow down. 
 
 But Gomez-Pomar rejected criticism that the safety system was insufficient, saying the debate "does not make much sense". 
 
 UNFAIR TREATMENT? 
 
 Santiago was meant to be celebrating the yearly festival of St. James on July 25, with thousands of Christian pilgrims arriving after walking the famous Camino de Santiago ancient pilgrimage trail. 
 
 A week of concerts and other cultural events were cancelled after the train crash on the eve of the Saint's day. On Sunday, black ribbons of mourning hung on the empty stages that had been set up. 
 
 Pilgrims, many of them fresh off the trail and carrying backpacks, crammed into a standing-room-only Mass in Santiago's centuries-old cathedral where they were asked to remember the victims of the accident. 
 
 At the cathedral gates, along with flowers and candles commemorating the dead, some people left walking sticks from their journeys and others placed shells, the symbol of St. James and badge of honor for the pilgrims who complete the journey. 
 
 Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who visited the crash site soon after the tragedy, is due to return on Monday to Santiago, the city where he was born, for an official funeral ceremony for the victims. 
 
 Dolores Mato, 57, a shopkeeper close to the ancient cathedral, expressed sympathy and grief for the victims and their families, but also for Garzon, who she said had been "crucified" in the media. 
 
 "I really think something must have gone wrong on that train. It couldn't have been only his fault," she said. 
 
 The accident comes at a bad time for Spanish high-speed railway interests, seeking contracts in Brazil for a proposed line linking Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. 
 
 On Saturday the head of the Galician regional government, of which Santiago is the capital, said the accident was being used as an excuse to criticize Spain's high-speed train capabilities. 
 
 Train drivers union SEMAF say the treatment of Garzon at this early stage in the investigation has been inappropriate. 
 
 "(The police) are using information which hasn't been checked, without having the official version, to arrest this man. You can't take someone away in handcuffs like that, it leaves a great deal to be desired," Santiago Pino, spokesman for train drivers union SEMAF, told Reuters. 
 
 (Writing by Elisabeth O'Leary; Editing by Fiona Ortiz, Peter Graff and Sonya Hepinstall)
– Another deadly train accident is in the news, this time from Spain. A high-speed train in the country's northwest derailed last night; it was reportedly moving at double the speed limit, and Reuters says the driver is under investigation. Officials say at least 77 people are dead, the New York Times reports. At least 100 more were injured, and 20 are in critical condition, CNN adds. Authorities say the train had about 220 passengers and derailed around 8:40pm local time near the station in the city of Santiago de Compostela, 60 miles south of El Ferrol, the AP notes. An official tells CNN more bodies are expected to be found, and some reports now put the death toll at 78. The train, which belongs to the state-owned Renfe company, was on its way to El Ferrol from Madrid. It was going 110 miles per hour in a zone where the speed limit is 50, sources told Spain's El Pais paper, per the Times. According to CNN, the train driver told police he entered a curve too quickly, and the country's transport secretary confirmed the "tragedy appears to be linked to the train going too fast." The BBC says all 13 cars came off the tracks, and it quotes one passenger who says they seemed to "pile up on one another" at a curve in the tracks. "There are bodies lying on the railway track," says one government official. "It's a Dante-esque scene."