With charred and shattered wagons, columns of smoke and rescuers pulling bodies from a crooked convoy, Greece woke up on Wednesday shaken by a train accident that had killed at least 32 people and injured 85.
| Fountain: AFP
After a nighttime collision of a passenger train with a freight train, dozens of rescuers and firefighters crowded around at least two partially burned cars, and thick smoke also emanated from others that were overturned.
| Fountain: EFE
The restaurant car of a passenger train between Athens and Thessaloniki (the country’s second largest city, in the north) caught fire as a result of this collision, the origin of which is still unknown.
| Fountain: EFE
“I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. This is a tragedy. Five hours later, we are still finding bodies,” the exhausted rescuer said as he climbed out of the cavity where he and his team were removing the bodies of the passengers. .
| Fountain: EFE
Rescuers couldn’t even get to the other car because the force of the collision nearly crushed it under the weight of the other car.
| Fountain: EFE
Hours after the fatal crash, firefighters and passengers are still reeling from what local media are calling the worst rail tragedy in the nation’s history.
| Fountain: EFE
On the air of the Skai TV channel, the governor of the region, Kostas Agorastos, expressed his regret: “Cars 1 and 2 no longer exist (…) The number of injured and dead can be high.”
| Fountain: EFE
According to public television ERT, Mayor of Tempe Yorgos Manolis, there were numerous students on the train who were returning to Thessaloniki after a long weekend due to the holiday in Greece.
| Fountain: EFE
About 150 firefighters were mobilized, as well as 40 ambulances, according to Greek aid services. Cranes and mechanics also moved there to clear the rubble and lift the overturned wagons.
| Fountain: EFE
Injured, with a frozen face, the passengers explained their experiences in front of the cameras of Greek televisions. “People started breaking windows to get out of the cars,” they shouted. It was a complete panic, ”said a survivor of the Skai network.
| Fountain: EFE
The trains collided shortly before midnight local time near Tempe, a small town located in the valley where the railway tunnel is located, about 300 kilometers north of Athens.
| Fountain: EFE
All indications are that the trains – one passenger and the other commercial – both operated by Hellenic Train, were traveling on the same track at high speed at the time of the crash, which initially points to human error.
| Fountain: EFE
Kostas Geridunias, President of the Greek Train Operators Union, condemned the deteriorating state of the country’s railway infrastructure on the air of the private television channel ERT.
| Fountain: EFE
About 250 people, who were not injured or had minor injuries, were taken by bus to Thessaloniki, located 130 km north of the accident site, where, according to an eyewitness, “apocalyptic” scenes take place.
| Fountain: EFE
Due to the severity of the collision, the wreckage of the two trains was thrown a long distance.
| Fountain: EFE
In the first light of the day, Wednesday’s images showed burnt train cars laced with metal and broken windows.
| Fountain: EFE
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has declared three days of mourning for those killed in the train collision.
| Fountain: AFP
Source: RPP
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