AT LEAST 41 people were killed and 47 injured when an underground train ran off its tracks in Valencia yesterday, days before the Pope was due to visit the Spanish city.

Local authorities moved swiftly to dispel fears of a terrorist attack as first reports raised the spectre of the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 three years ago.

They said that the derailment had been caused by a combination of a broken wheel and speeding by the driver.

Emergency services, alerted by a mobile phone call from a passenger trapped inside the tunnel, laboured all day to pull the blackened bodies of the dead and injured to the surface. A field hospital was set up next to the station and urgent appeals made for blood donors.

Twelve of the injured remain in hospital, two in a serious condition.

Cesar Hernandez Nunez, a 21-year-old student travelling in the second carriage, said: “The train began to go faster than usual and started to move from one side to the other, Right after that it was chaos.”

A woman waiting at the Jesús Metro station said that she had heard a very loud noise and seen sparks fly deep inside the tunnel.

Two carriages overturned as the train approached the station, Valencian authorities said. According to reports, many of the injured tried to escape through broken windows and along the track.

Police moved 150 people off the platform and set up an exclusion zone. The electrical supply was cut and experts flown in to help to identify the dead.

Only 14 victims had been identified and 25 autopsies had been carried out so far, said Rosa Sanchez, a Justice Ministry official. More bodies could be discovered when the wrecked carriages are lifted off the rails.

Graham Moore, a Briton living in Valencia, told the BBC of a “chaotic and confusing” scene 15 minutes after the accident. “There were people with heads bleeding, cuts and bruises. The injuries appeared to be just head, neck and chest injuries — they were quite seriously injured.”

Rita Barberá, the Mayor of Valencia, called the accident “a catastrophe, a tragedy”. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Prime Minister, who is on an official visit to India, sent his condolences, as did King Juan Carlos, who called the head of the Valencian Government to express his dismay.

In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI led prayers for the victims and sent condolences. Security in the Mediterranean coastal city is being tightened before the pontiff’s arrival on Saturday, when hundreds of thousands of people are expected to greet him at the World Meeting of the Families. Once initial fears of a terrorist incident were quelled and it became clear that the collision was a straightforward accident, questions were asked about whether negligence by the management could have contributed. Thirty-five people were injured in a three-train smash just outside the city on the same line last September.

That was blamed on a combination of factors, including “over-confidence” by the driver. It was unclear how long the line would remain closed.

Websites filled with commentary shortly after the accident, with some saying that Valencia should concentrate less on hosting international events and more on maintaining its rail infrastrucuture.

The city will host the America’s Cup sailing race next year and authorities are extending the Metro, which has four lines and 116 stations and carried 60 million passengers last year.

One blogger wrote: “Sooner or later this was going to happen. The trains are old and the maintenance almost non-existent. We want the truth and the resignations of the politicians responsible.”

The trades union federation said that Valencian authorities had been too quick to blame the driver, claiming that the line involved suffered a “continual deterioration and a lack of maintenance”.

The Valencia Metro system is new by London standards; construction of the oldest line began in 1988.

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