How did the devastating train accident near Larisa come about? Apparently there have been problems with the control system for a long time. The train driver must be informed by radio. On the evening of the accident, however, they unsuspectingly drive for kilometers towards each other. The police are now arresting a station master.
After the serious train accident in Greece, the station master of the city of Larisa has been arrested. A police spokesman said the 59-year-old was in custody. The police will announce the specific allegations against the station master shortly.
At least 36 people were killed and dozens more injured in the serious train accident near Larisa late Tuesday evening. A passenger train collided head-on with a freight train on the route between the capital Athens and the port city of Thessaloniki and derailed. Several wagons were almost completely destroyed.
According to a government spokesman, the two trains had been traveling on the same track for “several kilometers” before the accident. The chairman of the train drivers’ union OSE, Kostas Genidounias, confirmed this. In his view, the “unimaginable” accident could have been prevented “if the safety systems had worked”.
Despite the modernization with new bridges and tunnels and two tracks along the entire 500-kilometer Athens-Thessaloniki route, there are significant problems with the electrical coordination of traffic control. “We drive from one part of the route to the other by radio like in the old days. The station managers give us the green light,” said Genidounias. He was unable to say why this is happening and why no modern control system works.
The accident happened just before midnight. Several carriages of the passenger train, in which about 350 people were sitting, derailed and some caught fire. 66 injured were taken to the hospital, six of them had to be treated in intensive care.
According to the fire brigade, the number of victims could still increase because there were still people in the wreckage of the train in the morning. The rescue work is “very difficult,” said Konstantinos Giannakopoulos from the doctors’ union in Larisa on the ERT television channel. Charred bodies were also found.
Regional governor Kostas Agorastos said on Skai TV that the death toll will likely be “very high” in the end. Health Minister Thanos Plevris said many young people were on the train. According to him, many students had taken the train to go back to Thessaloniki after a long weekend.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” said a member of the emergency services, who came out of a wrecked wagon, completely exhausted. “It’s so tragic.” A wagon was completely crushed, the rescue workers could hardly get into it. Other wagons lay on their sides with shattered windows and smoke hung over the site.
“It was a nightmare, I’m still shaking,” said 22-year-old passenger Angelos at the scene of the accident. “Fortunately we were in the penultimate carriage and got out alive.” The collision felt like a “huge earthquake”. “There was a fire in the first wagons and total panic,” he reported.
“At the moment of the accident, the windows suddenly exploded,” another passenger reported on television. “Fortunately we were able to open the door and escape quickly. People couldn’t do it in other cars.” Another train passenger told the newspaper “Protothema”: “I have bloodstains from other people who were injured next to me.”
Greek media spoke of the worst train accident in the country’s history. 150 emergency services were involved in the rescue work, and 40 ambulances were also deployed. At daybreak, two large cranes began lifting parts of the wreck. One of the wrecked wagons was lifted from a field next to the train tracks.
The accident caused great dismay at home and abroad. “My thoughts are with the people of Greece this morning,” wrote EU Council President Charles Michel on Twitter. The Greek government called an emergency meeting and declared three days of national mourning. Military hospitals in Thessaloniki and Athens have been put on alert.
