MADRID, Jan 22 (Reuters) - A commuter train collided with a crane arm that swung into its path in southeastern Spain on Thursday, the transport minister said, in the country's fourth rail accident in less than a week.
Six people suffered minor injuries after the arm hit the passing train's windows, close to the port city of Cartagena in Murcia region, authorities added.
The incident - which did not derail the train but briefly disrupted traffic on the line - came four days after a high-speed train collision in the southern Andalusia region killed at least 43 people.
Two days after that, on Tuesday, a commuter train derailed after a containment wall fell on the track due to heavy rain near the city of Barcelona, killing the driver and seriously injuring four passengers.
The main train drivers' union called a nationwide strike over safety standards after that and a second, less serious, collision in the northeastern Catalonia region the same day.
On Thursday, "a street-lighting basket crane vehicle ... encroached on public railway land with its arm, striking the windows of a metric gauge train that was passing by at the time," Transport Minister Oscar Puente wrote in a post on X.
The injuries were minor, a spokesperson for the central government's representative in Murcia told Reuters.
Alcohol tests on both the train driver and the crane operator were negative, they added.
(Reporting by David Latona, Emma Pinedo and Jesús Calero; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Andrew Heavens)
