Train crash in Greece prompts strike
Relatives offer DNA samples to ID victims
THESSALONIKI, Greece — Family members awaited the results of DNA testing to identify victims of a train crash that killed nearly 60 people in Greece, as workers went on strike Thursday saying the rail system is outdated, underfunded and dangerous.
The government has blamed human error, and a railway official was charged with manslaughter.
Emergency crews, meanwhile, inched through the mangled remains of passenger carriages in their search for the dead from Tuesday night’s head-on collision, which has left 57 confirmed dead — a number that rescuers fear will increase.
The collision of a passenger train and a freight train was the country’s deadliest ever, and more than 48 people remained hospitalized — with six in intensive care — most in the central Greek city of Larissa.
Larissa residents lined up to give blood, many waiting in heavy rain for more than an hour, while the city’s hotel association provided free accommodation to relatives of the crash victims.
DNA matching was going fast, with at least four families — in the presence of psychologists — receiving confirmation Thursday that their relatives were among the dead, said police spokeswoman Constandia Dimoglidou.
Dimoglidou said the process usually takes several days but authorities are making an effort to finish by Friday. She said 24 bodies have been identified through DNA so far. The testing was necessary because many of the bodies were burned or mangled beyond recognition.
Among the dozens of grieving relatives who spent a second day at the hospital awaiting results Thursday was Dimitris Bournazis, whose father and 15-year-old brother remain unaccounted for. He said phone calls to Italian-owned train operator Hellenic Train have been fruitless.
“I’ve been trying since yesterday afternoon to communicate with the company to find out what seat my father was in,” he said. “Nobody has called me back.”
Railway workers’ associations called strikes, halting national rail services and the subway in Athens to protest working conditions and what they described as a dangerous failure to modernize the rail system. A second 24-hour strike was called for Friday.