“Thirty-two passengers were found dead,” said Vassilis Vathrakogiannis, the spokesman for the Greek firefighters during a brief press briefing, adding that the rescue operation was still in progress. “Of the 85 people injured, 53 people remain hospitalized,” he added.
No details have been provided at this stage as to why the two trains collided. But according to the Greek media, it is the “worst train accident that Greece has ever known”.
Three cars derailed a few minutes before midnight Tuesday evening at the level of the city of Larissa, in the center of the country, after the collision between a freight train and another convoy carrying 350 passengers, reported this spokesman.
Some 150 firefighters, as well as 40 ambulances, were mobilized according to Greek relief. Cranes and mechanics were also deployed to try to clear the debris and lift the overturned wagons.
One of the wagons, white with a blue and red stripe, was completely crushed, making the intervention of rescuers particularly difficult, while others were partly destroyed. Heavy smoke and flames were emerging from other cars.
Carcasses of pulverized and charred wagons
Dozens of rescuers and firefighters are busy around at least two partly charred locomotive carcasses while thick smoke escapes from other damaged and overturned wagons, AFP noted.
The restaurant car of the passenger train, which made the connection between Athens and Thessaloniki, the second city of Greece in the north of the country, caught fire during this collision, the origin of which is still unknown.
Further, dozens of fire trucks and ambulances are deployed along the railway line, which runs along a road in the Tempé Valley, north of the city of Larissa (center), 200 km from Athens.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my entire life. It’s a tragedy. Five hours later, we continue to find bodies,” a rescuer told AFP, breathless after having extricated two bodies from a wagon under thick smoke.
The Greek media refer to it as the worst railway tragedy the country has ever known.
The provisional report of the firefighters reports 32 dead and 85 injured, 53 of whom were still hospitalized on Wednesday morning.
“The death toll is likely to be very high,” said regional governor Kostas Agorastos. “Wagons 1 and 2 no longer exist at all,” he said on the Skaï TV channel.
Firefighters cannot access a car further. Under the violence of the shock, it was almost entirely pulverized by another car which overlapped it.
Impressive images show a charred train car and the carcass of another bearing the inscription “Hellenic train”.
Some 150 firefighters were mobilized, helped by cranes and mechanics to try to clear the debris and lift the overturned wagons.
“It was total panic”
Traumatized, faces closed and drawn features, the passengers explain in front of the Greek television cameras “to be deeply shocked”.
“People started destroying the windows to get out of the cars, they were screaming. It was total panic,” said a passenger on the Skai television channel.
On the local news site ThessToday, another young man confides “to be still in a state of shock”. “We heard passengers screaming for help!” he adds.
Some angry demand explanations from the railway company.
“I felt like something was wrong when we pulled over. We were delayed due to heavy traffic on the train tracks, the driver told us we would be delayed for 15 minutes because it “It’s a single track. We probably should have been delayed more, (it) wasn’t properly planned”, enraged a passenger on the MEGA television channel.
At the Thessaloniki station, further north, it is also the anguish of families who are waiting for news of their loved ones.
The train was notably full of students traveling between Athens and Thessaloniki.
According to the mayor of Tempé, Yorgos Manolis, they were returning after a long weekend due to a public holiday in Greece.
A young man is waiting for his partner: “I’m scared, I have no news, I’m expecting the worst”, he explains to a Greek journalist.