At least 36 people died and 85 were injured in Greece in a violent head-on collision on Tuesday evening between a freight convoy and a passenger train traveling between Athens and Thessaloniki (north), according to a new count published on Wednesday by the firefighters.
“The death toll has risen to 36 at present,” Vassilis Vathrakogiannis, the spokesman for the Greek fire service, told the press, adding that rescue operations to try to free passengers who may still be stuck in the Wrecked cars were still going.
In addition, “66 people were hospitalized, six of whom are in intensive care,” he added, while a previous report showed 85 injured in total.
No details have been provided at this stage as to why the two trains collided. But under the violence of the shock, the locomotives and leading wagons were pulverized and the drivers of two trains killed instantly.
At first light, images showed charred train cars in a tangle of metal slabs and shattered windows. Other less damaged cars were overturned on their sides while rescuers used ladders to try to extricate survivors.
“The work of firefighters and rescuers is very difficult, they are looking for (…) the charred bodies”, explained Konstantinos Giannakopoulos, the president of the union of doctors of Larissa on the public television channel ERT. .
According to indications from the emergency services during the night, 194 passengers were able to be evacuated.
Two huge cranes were installed on the accident area to help clear parts of the train.
According to the Greek media, it is the “worst train accident that Greece has ever known”.
“We felt the collision like a big earthquake,” a passenger, Angelos, 22, told AFP at the scene.
“Fortunately, we were in the penultimate car and we got out alive. There was a fire in the first cars and panic ensued. It was a nightmare that I lived (.. .) I’m still shaking,” he continued.
Tuesday shortly before midnight (2200 GMT), several cars derailed north of the city of Larissa, in the center of the country, at the level of the Tempé Valley, after the collision between a freight train and another convoy carrying 350 passengers. , according to the spokesman for the fire department.
The passenger train made the connection between Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city in the north of the country, while the freight train made the reverse journey. They collided at the exit of a small tunnel above which passes a highway linking the two main cities of Greece.
According to the Greek Minister of Health, Thanos Plevris, “most of the passengers were young people”. Many students were returning to Thessaloniki after a long weekend due to a public holiday in Greece.
Some already denounced the lack of efficient security systems while train users in Greece regularly denounce their obsolescence. The railway company Hellenic Train, privatized in 2018, is controlled by the Italian group FS.
“It’s an unimaginable accident,” denounced to AFP the president of the OSE train drivers’ union, Kostas Genidounias, who was at the scene of the accident.
“Two trains ended up on the same track and collided head-on (…) No safety system, remote control and traffic lights are working. This horrible accident would have been avoided if the safety systems were working”, continues- he.
Some 150 firefighters, as well as 40 ambulances, were mobilized according to Greek relief.
One of the wagons, white with a blue and red stripe, was completely crushed, making the intervention of rescuers particularly difficult.
“Most of the passengers have been brought to safety,” however, assured the spokesperson for the fire department.
“The operation to free trapped people is underway and is taking place in difficult conditions, due to the seriousness of the collision between the two trains,” he also said.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is en route to the site of the collision.
A three-day mourning has been decreed in Greece.
03/01/2023 09:41:27 – Larissa (Grèce) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP