Festival students among 38 dead in train horror
AT LEAST 38 people were killed when a passenger train collided with an oncoming freight train in northern Greece.
Fire service officials said 85 were injured when multiple train carriages derailed and at least three caught on fire after the crash just before midnight on Tuesday near Tempe – 235 miles north of Athens.
Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who visited the scene of the crash, said: ‘Everything shows that the drama was, sadly, mainly due to a tragic human error.’ Police said the 59-year-old station master in the city of Larissa has been arrested following the crash.
Many of the victims were students returning from a carnival.
Rescue crews used floodlights as they searched the twisted, smoking wreckage for survivors. Several passengers were thrown through the carriage windows on impact.
Vassilis Polyzos, one of the first residents on the scene, said: ‘The trains were completely destroyed. People, naturally, were scared – very scared. They were looking around, searching; they didn’t know where they were.’
Officials said a fire in one of the carriages reached a temperature of 1,300C (2,370F).
Rail operator Hellenic Train said the northbound passenger train from Athens to Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, had about 350 passengers on board.