Spanish regional High Court warns about fake text messages sent to families of Urda accident victims

According to the CID (data integration centre), relatives of people who may have lost their lives in the accident are receiving messages claiming that the Guardia Civil have confirmed a deceased's identity.

The CID reiterates that "the Guardia Civil inform the families of the deceased of their identification in person and directly". The procedure does not provide for notifications via text messages or telephone calls. The authorities are therefore asking people not to give credence to these communications.

The warning comes as work continues on the post-mortem examinations and identification of the victims of the train crash, which has been ongoing without interruption since Wednesday.

The Urda tragedy has sparked a wave of hoaxes and conspiracy theories on social media. The misinformation takes the form of images of other rail accidents presented as if they were from the Toledo tragedy, AI-generated images and viral videos containing false information.

One of the pieces of content that has attracted the most attention from users is a video of Benjamin Netanyahu in which he allegedly threatens power cuts and train accidents. The footage is from a speech the Israeli Prime Minister gave on 10 April 2026, in which he announced the withdrawal of Spanish representatives from a coordination centre linked to the ceasefire in Gaza and accused Spain of maintaining a hostile attitude towards Israel.

However, there is no evidence linking the Israeli government to the incident, according to fact-checks published by Newtral, EFE Verifica and VerificaRTVE. The video, which had previously spread false claims has resurfaced following the Urda accident, this time accompanied by posts portraying the collision as a possible act of retaliation.

Fact-checkers hold that there is no evidence to support this link and that the causes of the accident must be established through the official investigation. The rapid spread of this content comes as relatives and friends of the missing passengers search for information about their loved ones on social media.

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