Copper cable thefts bring key Spanish rail route to a standstill
Thousands of rail passengers in Spain faced delays after copper cables used in the signalling system of a high-speed line travelling south from Madrid to Seville were stolen at five locations, authorities said.
The theft, which happened late Sunday, affected dozens of trains travelling between Madrid and the southern Andalusian cities of Seville, Malaga and Granada as many people were returning home to Spain's capital after a holiday weekend.
Copper prices are high on global markets, meaning criminals stand to collect big sums of cash from selling the material.
Many travellers crowded Madrid's Atocha station seeking information about their trains from rail employees and screens with updated departure times.
By 9am, Alberto Valero and his family had spent hours at the station because of delays on services to Seville, where they were headed. Mr Valero was on holiday in Spain from Mexico, and expressed frustration about the lack of information.
'We're here with tourists from everywhere - France, Portugal,' Mr Valero said. 'Everyone is at a loss for what to do because of the total disarray.'
The cable theft took place at five points on the high-speed line in Toledo in central Spain. Spain's national police force is investigating the incident.
People board metros following a huge outage that hit Spain and Portugal
Travelers sit as they prepare to spend the night at the Atocha train station, following a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France
Travelers pull their luggage as they arrive to spend the night at the Atocha train station, following a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France
Spain's high-speed rail network has expanded rapidly and travels through large stretches of the country's little-populated countryside.
The incident came a week after a blackout in Spain and Portugal saw high-speed train traffic in Spain grind to a halt, stranding many passengers for several hours.
Described as 'catastrophically bad', the outage grounded flights, sent roads into gridlock as traffic lights failed, and left entire cities without power or telecommunications.
The outage caused a frenzy across the Spain, with the interior ministry deploying 30,000 police officers countrywide to maintain security in an evening of darkness.
Huge queues formed outside shops and banks as residents, with tourists desperately seeking to stockpile essentials and take out cash.
Stranded train passengers spend the night at Atocha railway in Madrid, following a massive power outage that affected Spain and Portugal
Sants train station in Barcelona was evacuated after a widespread power outage struck Spain and Portugal
Passengers wait for Barcelona's Sants railway station to reopen
Rows of cars were pictured lining up at petrol stations as people hoped to fill up their vehicles and fuel cans, with expats detailing how they have turned to power generators to keep their homes going.
The partly state-owned grid operator's chief of operations told reporters last week that grid instability caused the Spanish and French electricity interconnection through the Pyrenees mountains to split, resulting in a general collapse of the Spanish system.
Sanchez said that the country had lost 15 GW of electricity generation in five seconds - equivalent to 60 per cent of national demand.
Experts say the blackout is due to a combination of factors including Spain's reliance on green energy.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14682863/Copper-cable-thefts-bring-key-Spanish-rail-route-standstill-thousands-stranded-days-country-thrown-chaos-blackout.html
Two burglaries in August 2023, in which first cabling in a voltage room on the site was taken and then cabling was stolen from transformers on the site, causing damage of approximately £500,000
Footage captured by the trap camera showed metal thieves spending hours carrying bags of copper cabling, which was also loaded onto orange trolleys
Romanian Alexandru Parole was part of the group of metal thieves. His accomplices remain on the loose.
Five professional burglars filmed themselves laughing while they ransacked industrial units and factories, stealing £1.6 million metals and such
The criminals sold the metal to unscrupulous scrap dealers
Police seize stolen BT cables from a warehouse in Bolton. Officers believe the surge in thefts is being driven by Romanian gangsters
A Romanian gypsy child begs from cars on a London street
Motorists are losing around 600,000 catalytic converters to thieves each year
Catalytic converters are stolen by crime rings, recycled and sold back to the very people who produce the devices for carmakers
More than a third of the catalytic converters stolen in the USA are taken from cars in California
One of the thieves shows a mobile-phone picture of a haul they sold to gypsies for £5,700
Copper thieves typically work in darkness, in remote areas and close to open fields where a vehicle can be parked to take away the load (pictured: two copper thieves in Nuneaton)
Many of the cables are ripped up in the dead of night from the sides of railways. Mainly copper, some are on huge coils waiting to be fitted; most are in the ground, but redundant; others are live
Police and industry experts search for stolen metal in a scrapyard.
