At least 40 dead and 130 injured in Greece in a terrible head-on collision between a freight train and a passenger train near Larissa.
The passenger train - with 346 people on board - was traveling from Athens to Thessaloniki , Greece's second largest city, while the freight train was traveling in the opposite direction. The two convoys traveled many kilometers on the same line and then collided .
While an investigation has been launched to understand the causes of the accident and the station master of Larissa has been arrested , the main focus is on saving lives. About 150 firefighters and 40 ambulances were mobilized, with cranes and other mechanical means to try to clear the debris and lift the overturned wagons.
On board the passenger train there were many university students returning from the "Clean Monday" festivities, the day that for Orthodox Greeks marks the end of Carnival and the beginning of Lent. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has proclaimed a three-day period of national mourning in the worst train crash Greece has ever seen . Hundreds of people lined up in front of hospitals in Larissa to donate blood to the wounded.
Tragico incidente ferroviario in Grecia
THE STORIES – «I've never seen anything like it in my entire life. It's tragic. Five hours later, we still find dead bodies,” a rescuer said. "We saw people being thrown 30-40 meters away from the scene of the impact ," said a Red Cross rescue worker. "The most difficult situation was in the first 2-3 carriages. Neither we nor the firefighters were able to get in, because they had caught fire… We waited 2-3 hours before the fire went out».
In the first three carriages of the Intercity 62 passenger train, according to a statement by the mayor of Tempé, Yorgos Manolis, "temperatures between 1,200 and 1,500 degrees Celsius have developed". "The cables exploded, the fire was immediate, not even the time to understand and we were surrounded by fire," said a survivor , Stergios Minenis, 28. Another passenger traveling in one of the last carriages said he felt the train shake, then capsize: "I managed to get off and went to the front, the train was bent 90 degrees, half of it was hanging over the flames . There were five people injured right where I was."
THE INVESTIGATIONS – According to the Greek media, human error is at the origin of the catastrophe. The train control system is still manual and the traffic is regulated by telephone by the station masters, who give the green light to the passage of the trains .
The only one arrested so far, the station master of Larissa, 59, is accused of manslaughter and bodily harm for negligence. It remains to be ascertained which of the two trains had been sent onto the wrong track. From the first indications it seems it was the one on which the passengers traveled.
(Unioneonline/D)