One middle-aged man wearing a white shirt had his face covered in blood as a policeman appeared to give him instructions as to where to go.
“There are bodies laying on the railway track. It’s a Dante-esque scene,” Feijoo told news radio Cadena Ser.
The accident on a stretch of high-speed track about four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the main train station in Santiago de Compostela, the destination of the famous El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage which has been followed by Christians since the Middle Ages.
“I want to express my affection and solidarity with the victims of the terrible train accident in Santiago,” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is from Santiago de Compostela, said in a twitter message.
The prime minister was to visit the scene of the accident on Thursday.
Public television TVE repeated appeals from area hospitals for blood donations to help the injured.
“The evacuation of the injured is almost complete. The impact was very violent and there is little more to say right now. The causes I imagine will be determined,” the vice president of the regional government of Galicia said.
The town hall of Santiago de Compostela called off planned concerts and firework displays that had been planned for Thursday as part of the festivities in honour of its patron saint.
“There are psychologists available for the families of the victims and they are getting information,” said a spokeswoman for the town hall.
The crash came less than two weeks after a passenger train derailed just south of Paris, killing six people and injuring 30 more.
French rail operator SNCF said that derailment may have been caused by a connecting bar that came loose.
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