Rescuers, forensic experts and police officers work at the site of a train accident near the city of Santiago de Compostela on Thursday. A train hurtled off the tracks on Wednesday in northwest Spain, killing at least 80 passengers and injuring more than 140. Photo: AFP/ HO

Rescuers, forensic experts and police officers work at the site of a train accident near the city of Santiago de Compostela on Thursday. A train hurtled off the tracks on Wednesday in northwest Spain, killing at least 80 passengers and injuring more than 140. Photo: AFP/ HO

A train hurtled off the tracks in northwest Spain killing at least 80 passengers and injuring more than 140, an official said Thursday, with the driver reportedly going at twice the speed limit.

The accident happened at 8:42 pm on Wednesday as the train carrying 218 passengers and four staff was about to enter Santiago de Compostela station in the northwestern region of Galicia.

Carriages piled into each other and overturned in the smash, smoke billowing from the wreckage, as bodies were lain out under blankets along the tracks in the country's deadliest rail disaster in more than 40 years.

Several media outlets said the train was speeding at the time of the accident but a spokesman for state railway company Renfe said it was too soon to say what caused the accident.

"There is an investigation underway and we have to wait. We will know what the speed is very soon when we consult the train's black box," a Renfe spokesman said.

The driver became trapped in one of the carriages and he told railway officials by radio that he took the bend at 190 kilometers per hour in an urban zone with a speed limit of 80 kilometers per hour, daily El Pais reported.

"I was going at 190! I hope no one died because it will weigh on my conscience," he said, according to the online edition of the newspaper which cited unidentified investigation sources.

The train derailed on a stretch of high-speed track about four kilometers from the train station in the city, the destination of the famous El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage which has been followed by Christians since the Middle Ages.

It had left Madrid and was heading for the shipbuilding coastal town of Ferrol as the Galicia region was preparing celebrations in honor of its patron saint James.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, a native of Santiago de Compostela, arrived at the scene of the accident.

The country declared seven days of mourning in Galicia.