Spanish transport minister resigns after train crash killed 69 people

Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente has resigned less than a week after one of the deadliest train crashes in the country’s history. He has also withdrawn from the upcoming general election. Puente said on Tuesday that he had decided to resign immediately after last week’s crash but remained in office while the government coordinated its initial response. The collision, the second major train crash in Spain in less than a year, killed 69 people in central Spain’s Castilla-La Mancha region. “A transport minister in a country like Spain cannot continue in office with two accidents of this severity in less than a year,” Puente said, referring also to a high-speed train derailment in January in Andalusia that killed 46 people.