Spain is holding three days of mourning after two trains collided south of Madrid on Wednesday killing 69 people.

Rescue efforts: emergency service workers continue to search through the wreckage to find the missing people and identify any human remains. Spain's civil guard say they have deployed more than 900 people from specialist departments.

Leaked audio recordings: reveal the conversations between the train drivers and the control centre, which appear to show one high-speed train was given clearance to move even though another had stalled ahead.

Former minister killed: Spain's Employment Ministry confirmed that one of the people killed in the crash was 59-year-old former minister Fátima Báñez.

Spain's king visits crash victims: King Felipe VI has been visiting a hospital in Toledo where he has expressed condolences to those who have lost their loved ones, and has thanked the workers who are continuing rescue efforts.

Relatives look for their own answers: some people have taken to social media to ask the public for information on their missing friends and family. They've posted details including where they were sitting on the train, and pictures of them. One woman said her brother was on her way home to see family, and they're unable to reach him.

We're ending our live coverage here but you can read our news article.

A Spanish union boss has told the BBC that its workers "feel completely unprotected" following the train disaster.

Pedro Pevos, the national secretary of the independent trade union CSIF, says none of the union's workers "slept last night".

Asked about audio recordings of conversations between a control centre and train drivers which were leaked to Spanish media, Pevos calls the recordings "infamy".

"The mistake is really within the management. It is not something outside," he says.

The provisional death toll listed on the Spanish transport ministry website appears to have been revised back to 69.

It was previously listed as 74.

Details are continuing to emerge of the deadly crash between two trains in Urda on Wednesday, 28 October.

For those just joining us, here is a timeline of the last two days:

The story continued to develop through the day on Wednesday and into Thursday:

Later on Wednesday morning: A spokesperson for the government of Castilla-La Mancha region says at least 10 people are dead from the crash, but adds this figure "will almost certainly rise".

Wednesday afternoon: The local president says that the death toll has increased to 68.

16:00: Emergency services say 77 people are in hospital, while Spain's health minister Mónica García says 15 are "seriously injured".

20:00: A vigil is held at Toledo City Hall for the victims of the train crash, with local leader Emiliano García-Page and Education Minister Milagros Tolon being present.

Thursday 29 October, around 10:40: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says during a news conference that assistance centres have been established in the immediate region and praises the "tremendous work" done by rescuers.

He adds the Spanish government is working very hard to find out the causes of the incident.

The morning also saw at least 69 people being confirmed to have died from the crash, as well as 112 being sent to hospital.

Thursday afternoon: Spain’s employment ministry confirms former conservative minister Fátima Báñez, 59, has died in the crash.

Around 15:30: King Felipe VI of Spain visits a hospital in Toledo treating those who were injured in Wednesday's train collision.

All timings quoted are local.

Spain's transport ministry has increased the provisional death toll from Wednesday's crash to 74.

It also says the number of individuals who are injured is pending confirmation.

Update 17:28: This number was later revised on the transport ministry website to 69.

Speaking outside a hospital in Toledo, the king says he wants to express condolences to those who have lost their lives and those who have lost family.

He also gives thanks to people who attended the emergency and who are still working to rescue the missing and support people who need help.

He says that Spanish society has suffered a severe blow, and the country can continue forward in their memory united.

He says that an investigation is happening and it will determine how and why this catastrophe happened, and what measures will be adopted so that this will not happen again.

Image source, Reuters

King Felipe VI has been speaking outside the hospital in Toledo where he's been visiting victims of the train crash.

He's accompanied by his wife, Queen Letizia.

A civil engineer has described how one of the main problems in Spain's railways in the last few years has been a lack of investment, funding and maintenance.

The head of Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Cartagena Salvador García-Ayllón tells the BBC there is a "lack of confidence" in the older electronic system which failed.

García-Ayllón also describes how the audio recordings which capture the conversation between a control centre and the train drivers generate the idea that the problem behind the crash was the people, which he says is "a little bit wrong".

He adds: "The problem is not the human cost. The problem is that the system has been failing for a long time and the management should not be done by human management."

Joe Coughlan
Live reporter

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Victims of a train crash south of Madrid on Wednesday are continuing to be identified by the country's civil guard, with 69 people having been confirmed as dead.

Among the deceased is former minister Fátima Báñez, the country's employment ministry confirmed, while a local official said 112 people had been sent to hospital.

Protesters have demanded accountability for the collision, which occurred when a train travelling from Madrid to Seville barrelled into a stationary train, with politicians also calling for answers.

Audio recordings, revealing the conversations that took place between the two train's drivers, appear to show one high-speed train was given clearance to move even though another had stalled some 25km (15 miles) up ahead.

Hundreds of police and emergency workers remain at the scene in Urda, while relatives are being urged to come forward and provide DNA samples to aid in identification.

Meanwhile, relatives of those missing from the crash have spoken of their concerns about the safety of their loved ones - with one woman saying her family feels "sad, worried, and very anxious".

King Felipe VI of Spain is visiting a hospital in Toledo treating those who were injured in Wednesday's train collision.

It was reported earlier the King and Queen Letizia would be visiting the hospital to speak to staff and those affected by the crash.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Hundreds of emergency workers remain at the scene of the disaster and nearby, Spain's interior ministry has said.

In a recent update on X it says that 102 personnel from the Protección Civil are at the scene and in the local area, alongside 143 personnel from the police and 422 members of the Guardia Civil.

Madeleine Lake
Live reporter

Claudia Reina Reguera says her older brother David is still missing after he boarded the eighth carriage of Renfe's AVE 2080 train from Madrid to Seville.

She tells me that the 22-year-old works as a railway technician for Renfe in Madrid, but was travelling home to see family in both Málaga and Seville.

"More than 24 hours after the accident, we still have no news of our David," she says.

After hearing about the crash, her family called his phone but the call did not connect - she believes it has been broken or lost.

"We feel sad, worried, and very anxious. We hope we hear something about him soon," Claudia says.

Image source, Supplied

Her parents travelled to the accident site to find him and have been taken to a centre where victims' families are gathered.

They are waiting at the Civil Guard station in Toledo, where they've filed a missing persons report.

Claudia says her brother is "funny" and says he likes to "joke around" with his friends. She was told he would be spending a few days with her on Wednesday.

She says the entire family remain together, hoping for good news.

Train company Renfe says it shares the pain of the families and loved ones of those injured in the train disaster as well as other passengers on the trains.

The train company says in a statement that it has opened family support centres in Madrid, Córdoba, and Seville and adds that it is offering psychological support for those affected.

Renfe also thanks emergency services and government agencies for their rapid response.

Image source, Reuters

A regional government minister whose wife was travelling on one of the trains involved in Wednesday's crash says she suffered a collapsed lung and broken rib, but is "okay".

Mario Muñoz-Atanet, the regional minister for development and mobility in the Andalusia government, tells the news agency there was a "sudden silence" after the incident and that many people were in "bad shape", Reuters reports.

He says she was sitting in the seventh carriage of the high-speed AVE train and adds she saw "computers flying through the air" after the crash.

The minister says the rail system in the Andalusia-Madrid corridor is under "tremendous strain" due to the expansion of the rail sector, with maintenance and management being unable to keep up with demand.

Sergi Forcada Freixas
Reporting from Toledo

Image source, Getty Images

Former conservative minister Fátima Báñez, 59, has died in Spain's train disaster, the country's employment ministry says.

On Wednesday, Spanish media reported that she had been travelling in one of the trains and was unaccounted for and this afternoon, Spain’s Ministry of Employment said on X that she had been killed in the crash.

Conservative politicians paid tribute to Báñez following news of her death. The president of the community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, said she would be “deeply missed”, adding: “Spain loses a great political figure.”

Báñez served as Spain’s minister of employment and social security under Mariano Rajoy’s governments from December 2011 until June 2018.

She left frontline politics in 2019. She later became chair of the foundation linked to Spain’s main employers’ association, CEOE.

Sergi Forcada Freixas
Reporting from Toledo

Manuel San Emeterio, 57, is searching for his brother, Pepe, 54, who was travelling on one of the trains bound for Seville and remains unaccounted for after the crash.

He told me he had a DNA sample taken so it could be compared with those of some of the unidentified victims.

Manuel said he first realised his brother may have been involved in the accident when he received an alert from Pepe’s sports watch, which can send notifications in emergency situations. After seeing reports of a train crash on television, he realised his brother had been on one of the trains involved.

"I called him several times and nobody was picking up, and later there was no signal."

Manuel is now waiting for officials to tell him what happened and still hopes he will find his brother alive.

"I am hopeful. Hopeful of seeing my brother somewhere and giving him a hug. That's my hope, that they will call me, tell me where he is, and that I can give him a hug."

So far, the Civil Guard has received 64 reports from people whose relatives remain unaccounted for following the crash.

In southern Spain, locals in Seville pay tribute to the train crash victims by holding five minutes of silence at Santa Justa train station.

A minute of silence was observed in Spain's parliament this afternoon.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Some of Spain's top politicians have visited the emergency coordination centre near the crash site as rescue and recovery efforts continue.

Earlier, Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente explained a decision was made to allow trains to move again following a computer failure "under inexplicable circumstances".

But Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, leader of the centre-right People's Party (PP) criticised Puente for blaming the disaster on the traffic controller at Atocha station.

"The government tried to blame someone else" he tells reporters.

"More than 100 dead in two train accidents in eight months and on the same railway corridor, leads to a questioning of our current railway system," he says.

The spokesperson for the Catalonian independence party Esquerra Republican, Gabriel Rufián, says that "human error is the reflection of a failed safety system" and a "single person can not be responsible for the lives of hundreds when it comes to railway transportation".

Most political parties in Spain have suspended campaigning for the snap election in a month's time following the disaster.

Image source, Reuters

A local resident from Urda, who went to the crash site on Wednesday to help, has described what she saw there to Reuters news agency.

"Well, when I got there, I felt terrible, I was really scared," says Tamara, who did not give her surname. "But I found strength where I didn’t think I had any, and I started helping out just like everyone else".

She explains that when she arrived at the site of the accident at around 09:15 local time, she "found people lying on the ground, people who could walk away on their own, and people who were very shaken".

"So I started treating people’s wounds, providing psychological support to those who needed it, and talking a little with everyone."

Describing Wednesday as "a really tragic day" for Urda, she says she thinks the town did "a great job" responding and that "every helping hand counts".

Sarah Rainsford
Reporting from Toledo

Many people who were injured in the train crash are still being treated here at Toledo’s main hospital.

It’s also one place relatives come, searching for the missing. A young woman told us both parents were caught up in the crash: her father is now in intensive care, but he last saw his wife at the crash site - marked with a red sticker, meaning she is seriously injured.

Some people have taken to social media asking for information to help find their loved ones: they’re posting photos and details of which train and seat they were in and desperate for any news.

But at the city morgue, there are dozens of bodies – and the work to identify them goes on.

As it does, there is fierce discussion here in Spain about the cause of this tragedy.

Audio of calls between a train controller and the train drivers has been leaked, and suggests that a series of catastrophic decisions were made. That includes allowing one train to continue at high speed along the track – even though the train in front was stalled, and couldn’t move.