Officials are continuing to investigate the causes of the incident that Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has called "strange" since it occurred on a straight line and neither train was speeding.
Spain woke to flags at half mast on Tuesday as the nation begins three days of mourning for the victims of the deadly train accident in the south, while emergency crews continue searching for possible bodies.
The official death toll from Sunday’s accident rose to 40 by late Monday, the head of Andalucia's regional government, Juan Manuel Moreno, said.
But officials warned that that count may not be definitive, with emergency workers still probing for bodies among what Moreno called "a twisted mass of metal."
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Spanish national television RTVE late on Monday that search teams believe they have found three more bodies still trapped in the wreckage. Those bodies are not included in the official count, the minister said.
The crash happened at 7:45 pm on Sunday when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails.
It slammed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to rail operator Adif.
The head of the second train, which was carrying nearly 200 passengers, took the brunt of the impact. That collision knocked its first two carriages off the track and sent them plummeting down a 4-metre slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of metres from the crash site, Moreno said.
Officials are continuing to investigate the causes of the incident that Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has called "strange" since it occurred on a straight line and neither train was speeding.
But Puente said late on Monday that officials had found a broken section of track.
"Now we have to determine if that is a cause or a consequence (of the derailment)," Puente told Spanish radio Cadena Ser.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited the accident site near the town of Adamuz on Monday, where he declared three days of mourning with flags lowered on all public buildings and navy vessels.
Spain's King Felipe and Queen Letizia are scheduled to visit the scene later on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Spain's Civil Guard is collecting DNA samples from family members who fear they have loved ones among the unidentified dead.
Sole survivor
Meanwhile, a six-year-old girl is the only survivor from her family after the deaths of her parents, brother and a cousin in Sunday’s rail disaster.
The Zamorano Álvarez family, originally from Punta Umbría and now living in Aljaraque, were returning home after spending the weekend in Madrid, where they had attended a football match.
The unnamed girl was rescued practically unharmed by Guardia Civil officers, who found her wandering alone at the scene of the accident.
After being taken to the Reina Sofia Hospital in Cordoba, where she received three stitches for a head injury, she was discharged and is now in the care of her grandmother.