The death toll from Wednesday’s high-speed, head-on collision between a passenger train and a cargo train in northern Greece has risen to 38, 15 people still missing and at least 72 injured passengers were hospitalized.
Fifty-seven, including six in intensive care units, are under treatment at nearby hospitals, it said.
It noted that the victims include nine railway employees and university students returning to school in the northern port city of Thessaloniki from Larissa and Athens.
Search and rescue teams are working to pull survivors from the wreckage with the aid of at least two cranes, which are being used to remove passenger carriages.
Ambulances and fire engines are also on site and psychologists were sent to the Larissa General Hospital to provide support to the families of the victims and passengers.
Government spokesman Yiannis Oikonomou said: “The causes of this tragic accident will be investigated by competent authorities. It has already started seeking to clarify the conditions under which two trains were moving for many kilometers on the same line in the opposite direction.”
The Greek police on Wednesday afternoon arrested the station manager in Larissa, about 20 miles south of the crash site, without giving a reason. Greek news media reported that the station manager had directed the freight train onto the same track as the passenger train, but the authorities declined to confirm or deny those reports.
Nikos Sguris, one of the rescuers, told that there are two major reasons behind the high death toll.
First, both trains were moving at a fast speed, and second, the fire was further fueled by cooking oil stored in the restaurant area.
Another volunteer rescuer, Vasilis Iliopoulos, maintained that it is unlikely anyone will come out alive from the wreckage.
The flags at European Commission in Brussels, Belgium are lowered to half-mast due to the accident on March 1, 2023.
Source: AA
