The death toll from the\u00a0head-on collision of two trains in central Greece\u00a0is likely to rise with officials acknowledging that scores of people have yet to be accounted for nearly 24 hours after it left at least 43 dead and many more injured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rescue services worked against the clock to find survivors as by late Wednesday it became ever more apparent the country was dealing with a train crash the likes of which had not been seen in Europe in decades. Many of the dead were students. By midmorning 35 bodies had been taken to the general hospital in Larissa, the nearest town, some burned beyond recognition, forcing relatives to give DNA samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe find ourselves in front of an unimaginable tragedy,\u201d Greece\u2019s president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, said in a statement. \u201cWe are mainly mourning young people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Late Wednesday, Larissa\u2019s chief coroner, Roubini Leondari, said 43 bodies had been brought to her for examination and would require DNA identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As condolences poured in from around the world, the questions mounted. Footage of rescuers rushing to the site of the crash near a gorge about 380km (235 miles) north of Athens in a desperate effort to find survivors amid the mangled wreckage sent a shudder through the nation. \u201cWe have to ask why?\u201d said Sotiris Raftopoulos, the president of the Panhellenic association of retired railway workers. \u201cHow could this tragedy happen?\u201dhttps:\/\/interactive.guim.co.uk\/uploader\/embed\/2023\/03\/archive-zip\/giv-134254wNLDg76TV6y\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two trains \u2013 one carrying 342 passengers, the other transporting cargo from Thessaloniki to Larissa \u2013 collided at 11.20pm on Tuesday outside the town of Tempe after the Thessaloniki-bound night train, which had set out from Athens, inexplicably switched lanes and diverged to the freight track. The two trains then travelled for several kilometres along the same track before colliding at high speed. Witnesses who rushed to the scene described the front two carriages of the passenger train, where most of the student victims were seated, as being completely destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On impact the wagons exploded into flames, sending huge sheets of steel into the air. Survivors later spoke of being ejected from carriage windows; others described how they had to struggle through plumes of acrid smoke to free themselves after the train buckled. Many were subsequently caught on camera in the wreckage disoriented and dazed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of passengers didn\u2019t understand what exactly had happened because they were asleep,\u201d one survivor was quoted as telling the state news agency ANA-MPA. \u201cI was sleeping, too, and the sudden breaking shook [me awake]. When we realised what had happened, we tried to get out of the wagons, and when we managed that, we saw the chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From early on, the spotlight fell not only on a detained stationmaster \u2013 blamed for the \u201chuman error\u201d that caused the collision \u2013 but, increasingly, also the dire state of the nation\u2019s railways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Announcing his resignation after visiting the site of the crash, the Greek transport minister, Kostas Karamanlis, said the network was so flawed it did \u201cnot befit the 21st century\u201d. \u201cWhen something so tragic happens, it is impossible to continue and pretend like it didn\u2019t happen,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stepping down was not only \u201ca mark of respect toward the memory of the people who died so unfairly\u201d but, he added, an assumption of responsibility \u201cfor the Greek state\u2019s and Greek political system\u2019s mistakes over the course of history\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who also rushed to Tempe, called a three-day period of official mourning, ordering flags to fly at half mast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pledging a full, independent investigation, Mitsotakis called the collision \u201ca horrific rail accident without precedent in our country\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is one thing only that I can guarantee: we will learn the cause of the tragedy and we will do whatever passes through our hands for something like this to never happen again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a late-night address, Mitsotakis vowed that \u201cresponsibilities will be assigned\u201d. An independent cross-party committee of experts would, he pledged, immediately start looking into the causes of the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI met with relatives of the victims and the missing at the Larissa hospital. In their unspeakable pain, with great dignity, they asked me \u2018why\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will also examine the longstanding delays in implementing railway projects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Greek railway system was among an array of public utility companies that were privatised when the debt-stricken country narrowly avoided economic collapse a decade ago. With the network forced to work with a lack of staff, inadequate infrastructure and little automated signalling, officials in the transit sector warned a disaster was waiting to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trade unionists agreed. In February, barely three weeks before the crash, one union had issued a clarion call, saying: \u201cLike all the previous government, today\u2019s has other priorities and it is not the safe transport of citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nikos Tsikalakis, who heads the Association of Rail Workers and works as a pointsman, said the system was not only chronically understaffed but hopelessly<\/strong>behind the times. \u201cThe state has voted and has said, itself, that there should be 2,100 workers on the railroad when today there are 750 people who serve it all over Greece. It\u2019s not possible that a stationmaster should [have to] talk to another stationmaster. Everything should be a little more automated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The arrested stationmaster, described as being in his late 50s with more than four decades of experience on the railways, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and unintentionally causing mass grievous bodily harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A police investigation was also launched into the cause of the crash. A public prosecutor, Stamatis Daskopolopoulos, tasked with overseeing the inquiry, said witnesses had begun giving evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nikos Zigouris, a rescuer, said there were areas around the train wreckage that emergency teams had not managed to get to and where other bodies were likely to be found. \u201cIt\u2019s unclear if we\u2019ll continue later or with the first light of day,\u201d he told the public broadcaster ERT TV. \u201cWe need light because we need the cranes because [the debris] is so heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The death toll from the\u00a0head-on collision of two trains in central Greece\u00a0is likely to rise with officials acknowledging that scores of people have yet to be accounted for nearly 24 hours after it left at least 43 dead and many more injured. Rescue services worked against the clock to find survivors as by late Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,12],"tags":[5144,10879,9257,4321,8659,11092,6369,9784,11555,9233,9787,8193,6083,7234,10418,5183,6725,12326,11356,9387,5241,1917,6621,9127,5184,11638,6568,2264,5993,8163,10771,6825,8995,11111,10197,11341,6831,7964,11973,421,3805,3174,8598,8174,11354,11179,11688,5882,6059,6047,5224,6264,11906,10329,6262,9616,12852,5755,12605,7231,7728,9539,3954,11359,10415,36,594,5140],"class_list":["post-29967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world-news","tag-accident","tag-athens","tag-awake","tag-broadcaster","tag-camera","tag-cargo","tag-chaos","tag-charged","tag-citizens","tag-collapse","tag-collision","tag-crash","tag-dead","tag-death","tag-death-toll","tag-debris","tag-debt","tag-decade","tag-delays","tag-detained","tag-died","tag-dna","tag-europe","tag-february","tag-flames","tag-forced","tag-freight","tag-government","tag-greece","tag-greek","tag-horrific","tag-hospital","tag-infrastructure","tag-injured","tag-investigation","tag-manslaughter","tag-missing","tag-north","tag-one","tag-police","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-rail","tag-railway","tag-railways","tag-smoke","tag-state-of-the-nation","tag-steel","tag-student","tag-students","tag-survivor","tag-survivors","tag-the-general","tag-trade","tag-tragedy","tag-train","tag-train-crash","tag-trains","tag-uk","tag-union","tag-utility","tag-victims","tag-will","tag-windows","tag-work","tag-world","tag-who","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}