A passenger and a cargo train collided in Greece on Tuesday night, killing 43 people and injuring many others, becoming the country’s deadliest rail crash in history. The incident removed entire carriages off the tracks.
The collision and the subsequent fire wounded dozens of people. As one carriage was consumed by flames, temperatures inside reached 1,300 degrees Celsius which, according to officials, could lead to a rise in death toll.
Many victims of the accident were considered to be university students who were returning after a long weekend.
A 28-year-old passenger, Stergios Mninis, who jumped off for safety, said, “There was panic… the fire was immediate, as we were turning over we were being burned, the fire was right and left.”
A passenger who escaped from the fifth carriage told the Greek television network Skai TV, “Windows were being smashed and people were screaming… One of the windows caved in from the impact of iron from the other train.”
In the morning, the derailed passenger carriages were lifted by cranes, as rescuers continued to search for survivors under the wrecked mass of steel. One carriage was on its side almost 90 degrees from the rest of the train while the others were tilted dangerously.
A police official said, the local station master who was responsible for signalling was arrested on the accusation of causing numerous fatalities while the investigators were trying to find an explanation as to why the two trains were on the same track.
At the crash site, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said looking shocked, “It’s an unthinkable tragedy. Our thoughts today are with the relatives of the victims.”
“One thing I can guarantee; we will find out the causes of this tragedy and do anything in our power for it never to happen again.”
At the time of the crash, the passenger train emerged from a tunnel close to Larissa, while it was headed to the northern Greece city of Thessaloniki.
Giannis Oikonomou, a government spokesperson, said that before the trains crashed they were running towards each other “for many kilometres” on the same track.
“Mum, I’m hurt.”
According to Hellenic Train data, the passenger train had 342 travellers and 10 crew members onboard, while the cargo train was carrying two crew. A fire brigade official said, sixty-six people who were injured were hospitalized among whom six were kept in intensive care.
Survivors were taken to Thessaloniki, where one woman ran to her daughter as she got off a bus along with other survivors.
The daughter said, “Mum don’t, I’m hurt.” Another woman waiting there said her child was not answering the phone.
Apostolos Komnos, head of the emergency unit in Larissa hospital, said the majority of the people who died were young, in their 20s.
Three days of national mourning were announced by the government, from Wednesday to Friday. Flags were hoisted at half-mast in Athens and Brussels giving tribute to the victims of the crash.
President Katerina Sakellaropoulou shortened her visit to Moldova to come back to Greece.
At a news conference in the Moldova capital Chisinau, she said, “Even at this moment, a life-saving operation is going in to help those who are on this death train.”
“Tragedy”
ERT state TV displayed a crew member carrying a victim covered in a white sheet into an ambulance.
Vassilis Varthakogiannis, a fire brigade spokesperson, stated that the passengers were evacuated in “difficult conditions given the severity of the collision of the two trains.”
He said, “We are living through a tragedy. We are pulling out people alive, injured… they are dead.”
The cargo train was moving from Thessaloniki to Larissa. The local media said the train departed from Athens at around 7:30 pm (17:30 MUT ). The crash was reported sometime before midnight, the fire brigade said.
In 2017, Greece sold its railway operator TRAINOSE to Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane in an international bailout program, looking forward to hundreds of millions of euros to be invested in rail infrastructure in the coming years.
It is the prime provider of rail transport for passengers and goods in Greece and runs 342 passenger and commercial routes every day.
Greece’ old railway system requires renovation, with several trains running on single tracks and signalling and automatic control systems are yet to be installed in many areas.
Widespread protests
A one-day strike has begun across Greece by rail-workers. The strike started after protests in various places like Athens, Thessaloniki and the city of Larissa.
A clash between the protestors and the authorities were reported outside the headquarters of the company responsible for maintaining the railways, Hellenic Train in Athens.
Protests were also reported close to the crash site in Larissa and Thessaloniki in response to the wreckage that took place on Tuesday night.
The government is conducting an independent investigation to find the reason behind the accident.
