Police say they have detained the driver of a train that crashed in northwestern Spain and killed 78 people.

A train passes the wreckage of the high speed Renfe train
A train passes the wreckage of the high speed Renfe train (Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
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Galicia region National Police Chief Jaime Iglesias says driver Francisco Jose Garzon Amo was officially detained in the hospital where is recovering.
  

Iglesias says Garzon Amo will be questioned  "as a suspect for a crime linked to the cause of the accident." He says the driver is being guarded by police and cannot yet testify because of his medical condition. Iglesias said he did not have details of the medical condition but that it could delay the driver's statement.
  

Police examining the remains of those killed have lowered the death count from 80 people to 78 and say the count could change again as they identify body parts and associate them with others. Seventy two bodies have been identified so far and six remain to be identified.

Investigators, meanwhile, have taken possession of the train's "black boxes." Analysts will use them to try to determine why the train was traveling far above the speed limit when it crashed near a station in Santiago de Compostela, in the northwestern Galicia.


(Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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