Officials say death toll likely to rise as rescuers continue to comb through wreckage in remote area of Andalucía

Spain will begin three days of mourning on Tuesday as rescuers continue to comb through the wreckage of twisted train cars and scattered debris to locate victims after a train collision that killed at least 40 people and injured dozens.

On Monday, more than 18 hours after a high-speed train carrying about 300 Madrid-bound passengers derailed and collided with an oncoming train, people across the country were still scrambling to make contact with missing loved ones caught up in Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade.

People in Adamuz rushed to help when two trains smashed into each other and say they will never forget what they saw

Just after 2.45pm on Monday, a huge yellow-and-green crane lorry swung off the main road that cuts through the forested hills of eastern Andalucía and beetled down a track to begin picking up the enormous, wrecked pieces of Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade. Behind it rolled a support lorry and a convoy of police cars.

A few minutes’ drive away, between groves of olive and oak trees, lay the two stricken trains that had smashed into each other on Sunday night, killing at least 39 people and critically injuring at least 12 others. As investigators and Guardia Civil officers walked up and down the line by the twisted carriages, the nearby town of Adamuz was in the early stages of trying to process what had happened a few kilometres from its outskirts.