Head-on crash between passenger and cargo trains
Head-on crash between passenger and cargo trains happened near Tempe, close to central city of Larissa. It took a bang, and just seconds to turn a long holiday weekend into a nightmare for hundreds of Greeks caught up in a deadly train wreck on Tuesday night.
The death toll from the collision of two trains in central Greece rose on Wednesday as authorities announced that at least 36 people had been killed and scores injured with several of the wounded battling for their lives.
As rescue workers stepped up efforts to find survivors amid the still-smoking wreckage – more than 10 hours after the crash – the Greek fire brigade said 66 of the estimated 85 people hurt in the accident had been taken to hospitals in nearby Larissa. Six are in intensive care.
"Windows were being smashed and people were screaming," said a passenger on the fifth carriage. "One of the windows caved in from the impact of iron from the other train,"
There were about 346 people on the train, which passengers described as being two-thirds full with many young people.
"My child is not picking up the phone," one woman said as she waited at a train station in Thessaloniki. Another woman ran to embrace her daughter as she disembarked from a bus with survivors. "Mum don't, I'm hurt," she said.
Many of the victims were described as students who were gathered in the first two carriages, which sustained the full force of the impact of the crash and had been “almost completely destroyed”. The second carriage served as the train’s canteen.
"There was panic, cables (everywhere) fire, the fire was immediate, as we were turning over we were being burned, fire was right and left,” said 28-year old passenger Stergios Minenis.
Another passenger in one of the last carriages said he felt the train shake, then flip over.
"I managed to get out and went to the front, the train was bent at a 90 degree angle, half of it was hanging over the cliff burning. There were five people injured just where I stood," he said.
As morning broke, rescue crews trawled through a smouldering mangled mass of steel while cranes slowly removed pieces of the train.
The crash was being called the worst train accident in living memory in Greece with the cause of the accident attributed, at least initially, to “human error”. The two trains are thought to have travelled along the same track for 2-3km before they met head-on.
Television channels showed huge cranes removing parts of the buckled, burned out carriages where temperatures had risen dramatically as the cars derailed and burst into flames.
They were still discovering victims hours later. ERT state TV showed one crew carrying what was thought to be a victim, covered in a white sheet and gently placed in an ambulance.