MADRID, January 19. /TASS/. Alvaro Fernandez Heredia, the chief executive of the Spanish railway operator Renfe, almost completely excluded the human factor as the cause for the railway catastrophe in Andalusia.

"The human mistake is almost completely excluded," he told RNE radio station in an interview. "If an operator makes a wrong decision, the system corrects it on its own," he noted. According to Heredia, the cause may be linked to "a problem with rolling stock or infrastructure." The Renfe CEO also suggested waiting for results of the investigation.

The derailment of a high-speed train from Malaga to Madrid occurred on the evening of January 18 in the autonomous community of Andalusia. The collision happened when it derailed into the path of an oncoming train from the capital to Huelva. There were 317 passengers on the derailed train and about 100 on the other. The death toll from the derailment of two trains has risen to 39, with at least 152 others injured, the EFE news agency reported.