Normal reactions to an abnormal event
En las horas que siguieron al descarrilamiento de Adamuz, que se cobró 43 vidas, las familias reunidas en Córdoba comenzaron a mostrar los signos de un agotamiento que va más allá del cuerpo: es el peso de esperar lo incierto, de sostener el duelo sin poder cerrarlo. La psicóloga de Cruz Roja María Eugenia Castro recuerda que este sufrimiento, aunque desgarrador, sigue los cauces reconocibles del alma humana ante la pérdida, y que acompañar ese tránsito —desde el shock hasta la aceptación— es también una forma de restituir dignidad a quienes han perdido lo que más querían.
- Tras 72 horas sin respuestas definitivas, las familias de las 43 víctimas llegaban al límite de sus fuerzas, con el cuerpo y la mente al borde del colapso.
- La incertidumbre sobre el paradero de algunos desaparecidos mantenía a varias familias atrapadas en un umbral insoportable entre la esperanza y el duelo.
- El equipo de psicólogos de Cruz Roja trabajaba sin descanso para ofrecer herramientas concretas de afrontamiento, ayudando a las familias a entender que el proceso de sanación puede comenzar incluso antes de que llegue la certeza.
- Castro subrayó que la necesidad urgente de información no era capricho sino una necesidad psicológica real: conocer la verdad completa es el primer paso para poder cerrar una herida.
- Los equipos de emergencia —bomberos, policías, sanitarios— también fueron reconocidos como víctimas invisibles que necesitarán intervención psicológica para procesar lo que vivieron en el lugar del siniestro.
Tres días después del descarrilamiento en Adamuz, con 43 muertos confirmados, las familias concentradas en el Centro Cívico Poniente Sur de Córdoba mostraban un agotamiento profundo y visible. María Eugenia Castro, psicóloga de Cruz Roja, describía con claridad lo que estaba viendo: personas al límite, consumidas por la espera y por una necesidad imperiosa de saber qué había ocurrido exactamente con sus seres queridos.
Castro explicó que lo que vivían las familias —el peso de la incertidumbre, el deseo de entender, la urgencia de cerrar algo que permanecía abierto— formaba parte de un proceso de duelo normal, aunque el detonante fuera todo menos ordinario. El equipo psicológico acompañaba cada fase: el shock inicial, la negación como mecanismo de protección, y la lenta y dolorosa tarea de comenzar a integrar la pérdida. Su objetivo no era solo sostener a las familias en esos días inmediatos, sino dotarlas de recursos para cuando regresaran a su vida cotidiana y tuvieran que aprender a cargar con la ausencia.
Para quienes aún esperaban noticias de familiares desaparecidos, el sufrimiento era especialmente agudo. Días después del accidente, seguían suspendidos en ese espacio liminal entre la esperanza y la desesperación. Castro insistía en que la sanación podía comenzar incluso en medio de la incertidumbre, y que los equipos trabajaban para ayudarles a transitar ese proceso sin esperar a tener todas las respuestas.
La psicóloga también puso el foco en una realidad frecuentemente ignorada: los propios intervinientes —bomberos, policías, sanitarios— habían presenciado escenas que dejarían huella. Garantizar su acceso a apoyo psicológico era, subrayó Castro, tan necesario como el cuidado a las familias de las víctimas.
Three days had passed since the train derailed in Adamuz, and the death toll had climbed to 43. By that point, the families gathered in the Poniente Sur Civic Center in Córdoba were visibly depleted. María Eugenia Castro, a psychologist with the Red Cross, was there as part of the team providing support, and she had begun to see the pattern clearly: exhaustion was setting in, and with it, a desperate hunger for answers.
Castro explained that what the families were experiencing—the weight of waiting, the need to understand what had happened, the desire to move through their grief and find some kind of closure—was entirely normal, even if the circumstances that produced it were anything but. The psychological team's role was to walk alongside them through each stage: when the initial shock gave way to denial, when the first terrible notifications came, during the long hours of uncertainty. They were there to help families develop the tools they would need not just in these immediate days, but later, when they returned to ordinary life and had to learn how to carry this loss forward.
The families wanted information. They wanted it urgently. Castro emphasized this repeatedly: they needed the full picture, whatever it was, so they could begin to close this chapter of their lives. The exhaustion was real and visible. After 72 hours of not knowing, of waiting, of processing the unprocessable, they were running on empty.
Castro outlined the psychological journey she was witnessing. First came shock—the mind's refusal to accept what had happened, the sense that this could not possibly be real, the fog of disbelief. Then denial, a natural protective mechanism. But as those initial defenses began to soften, families moved into a different phase: the work of actually absorbing what had occurred, of searching for explanations, of beginning to integrate the loss. All of this, Castro stressed, was part of a normal grief process, even though the triggering event was profoundly abnormal.
For those still waiting for word of missing relatives, the psychological toll was particularly acute. They had survived the first shock, but the waiting continued. Days had passed, and still no resolution. Managing that prolonged uncertainty—the liminal space between hope and despair—was among the most difficult things a person could endure. The Red Cross team was offering families concrete strategies and coping tools, trying to help them understand that healing could begin even in the midst of not knowing, that they could start to process their grief and begin to close some of the wounds even as they waited.
Castro also acknowledged something often overlooked in the immediate aftermath of disaster: the responders themselves—the firefighters, police officers, paramedics, and all the others who had been present at the scene and in the recovery effort—would need psychological intervention too. They had witnessed things that would stay with them. The work of supporting the families was important, but so was ensuring that those who had responded to the crisis had access to the care they would need to process what they had seen and done.
Citas Notables
Families are very tired and want all the information so they can close the grieving process— María Eugenia Castro, Red Cross psychologist
These are normal reactions within an event that is not normal— María Eugenia Castro, Red Cross psychologist
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
When you say families are exhausted after just three days, what does that exhaustion actually look like?
It's not just tiredness. It's the depletion that comes from holding two impossible things at once—the shock of what happened, and the desperate need to know more. They're running on adrenaline that's running out.
You mentioned that uncertainty about missing relatives is particularly difficult. Why is that worse than knowing?
Because not knowing keeps you suspended. You can't grieve properly if you're still waiting. The mind won't let you move forward. It's a kind of psychological limbo.
Castro talks about normal reactions to abnormal events. What makes a reaction normal in this context?
It's normal because the human mind has predictable ways of protecting itself from overwhelming trauma. Shock, denial, then slowly the work of accepting. We see this pattern again and again. What's abnormal is the event itself, not how people respond to it.
She emphasizes that families want information to close the process. Is that really what they need, or is it what they think they need?
Both. Information is necessary, but it's also symbolic. Getting answers means the waiting ends. It means you can finally begin the actual work of grieving, rather than being stuck in this suspended state.
What about the responders—why do they need intervention too?
Because they were there. They saw things, made decisions, carried bodies. That stays with you. Without support, it becomes a different kind of wound.