The mayor of Adamuz has accused Andalucian president Juanma Moreno of politicising the town’s devastating train disaster during the regional election campaign.

Rafael Moreno said he was ‘deeply disappointed’ to see the tragedy ‘used’ during political debate and insisted the people of the Cordoba town were largely left to fend for themselves in the critical first hours after the accident.

In a strongly-worded public statement, the mayor said he had deliberately remained silent until now out of respect for the ongoing investigation into the crash.

‘I preferred to remain silent, allow investigators to do their work and wait for everything that happened to be clarified,’ he said.

However, Rafael Moreno claimed the emergency response on the night of the disaster was severely delayed and poorly coordinated during the crucial early stages.

According to the mayor, by 9.30pm – long after the crash had occurred – many injured passengers were still without organised medical assistance.

Instead, he said local residents stepped in to help victims themselves.

‘For a long time, those attending to passengers and the injured were mainly the people of Adamuz,’ he stated.

He claimed only eight ambulances had arrived an hour after the accident and said the emergency operation did not properly take control of the situation until after 10pm, when a field hospital was finally established.

‘The later coordination was good, yes – excellent – but two hours later,’ the mayor said.

‘Until then, we were acting however we could, without training or knowledge.’

The mayor also alleged similar problems unfolded at the town’s municipal hall, where affected passengers were being assisted.

He claimed no official medical deployment arrived there until around 11.30pm, leaving local nurses, doctors and home-care workers from Adamuz to provide support themselves.

‘If it hadn’t been for the people of Adamuz, I don’t know what would have happened,’ he said.

He praised the town’s residents for responding ‘silently, humanely and with exemplary dedication’ but warned he would not tolerate the tragedy being turned into an electoral weapon.

‘I will not allow the Adamuz accident to be used for electoral purposes,’ he said.

He concluded by saying that those now invoking the disaster politically ‘know perfectly well where failures occurred that night’, while stressing that Adamuz residents were there ‘from the very first moment’ while institutional help took far longer to arrive.

Juanma Moreno has since defended his government’s handling of the January 18 disaster during a campaign event organised by Cadena SER in Seville.

The Andalucian leader insisted no regional government or political party had acted with more ‘caution’ than his administration over the crash.

Juanma Moreno said his government had deliberately avoided making strong public accusations for more than 100 days while waiting for information from Spain’s central government.

He also referenced preliminary indications from the Guardia Civil suggesting there may have been issues with the railway track prior to the accident, claiming there had reportedly been ‘a problem there 22 hours earlier’.

However, he stressed that such information still needed official confirmation.

The Andalucian president additionally defended the emergency response, insisting there had been ‘one ambulance per minute’ deployed to the scene and arguing that no victims died ‘on the ground’ at the crash site.

He described criticism of healthcare workers and emergency personnel as ‘desperate’.

Moreno also suggested the mayor of Adamuz may have come under pressure from his own party, the PSOE, to make his recent statements.

The regional leader ultimately pointed towards Spain’s Transport Ministry as the institution with primary responsibility for the rail infrastructure, insisting the full truth about the disaster would eventually emerge.

Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.