Death toll rises in Santiago de Compostela train crash

This is an awful crash that occurred last evening in the northern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela by all reports at 20.41 hrs. A train 247 people derailed going around a bend and all the coaches came off the tracks. The latest reports say that the train may have been travelling too fast for that section of the track and as a result of the crash a shocking 77 people have been killed and many more injured, some severely. The astrology of this incident when you look at it is particularly nasty.

The Astrology of this crash is very easy to see, but none the less devastating. At the time it happened we had several very difficult planetary placements to deal with. On the angles of this chart we have the planet of death and destruction Pluto bang on the Capricorn Ascendant opposing Mars, the planet of speed, Jupiter the planet of excess and Mercury, the planet of transportation (ruling trains) all making squares to Uranus in Aries the planet of shocks and accidents sitting in the 3rd house ruling transport.

Looking to the top of the chart, we find the planet of loss Saturn sitting almost exactly on the Scorpio Midheaven, predicting a tragic public event. This Saturn of course is now making a square to the Sun in Leo which is also very difficult and harsh energy to deal with. The grand water trine still operative gives a background picture to the event. Saturn in Scorpio shows the difficult side of the incident (Saturn loss – Scorpio through death and intense experiences) and it makes the trine to Neptune and the Moon in Pisces which suggests emotional sacrifice, chaos, suffering and confusion of the people and the other part of the grand trine involving Jupiter and Mars shows that the death toll on this violent accident will be much much bigger than normal.

I don't often look at the location of incidents via AstroCartoGraphy but this is one because of the planets on the angles that is plain to see. I have zoomed in on Northern Spain on this picture and the red line indicates the position of Saturn on the Midheaven as placed on the earth, and in yellow you can see Pluto, Mercury, Jupiter and Mars on the Ascendant/Descendant axis. See how close Pluto was to Santiago De Compostela !!

This accident shows the power of the planets when they hit the angles of a chart, especially when two or three “malefic” ones, in this case Pluto, Saturn and Mars hit different ones at the same time, indeed this time they all hooked up making a wedge formation focused on Saturn conjunct the Midheaven at the pinnacle of the chart. If anything this intensified the nature of this accident.

I have also mentioned the danger of grand trines before and the potency of them when Jupiter’s presence is felt within them. As you will have seen just this week, when things go well and constructively then the joy is expanded and overwhelming as in the UK surrounding a royal birth, but when things go wrong, then grief and suffering and destructive power is also enhanced enormously by the influence of our largest planetary neighbour. That’s the double edged sword of Astrology in general, and people do tend to forget that sometimes the aspects we look at can work in the very opposite way that the textbooks say they should. Remember that all the aspects have good and bad sides to them, and trines in particular can allow the most awful things to happen. The grand trine yesterday combined with that most difficult t-square across the angles of the chart and you saw the shocking results.