As is often the case in this type of disaster, the results are only provisional and risk changing tragically. A collision between a freight train and a passenger train traveling between Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece, occurred overnight from Tuesday February 28 to Wednesday 1is March, at least twenty-six dead and dozens injured.
“The evacuation process is underway and is taking place under very difficult conditions due to the seriousness of the collision between the two trains”, said Vassilis Varthakoyiannis, spokesman for the fire department. He had previously also reported 85 people “wounded and transported to nearby hospitals”.
Mr. Varthakoyiannis explained that three wagons derailed near Larissa, in the center of the country 350 km north of Athens, after the collision between a freight train and another convoy carrying 350 passengers. One of the wagons caught fire and several people were trapped, according to the public television channel Ert.
Dozens of ambulances are taking part in the rescue operations. Rescuers, equipped with headlamps, work in thick smoke, pulling jagged pieces of metal from train cars to search for those stranded. Officials said the military had been contacted to help.
On the Skai television channel, Kostas Agorastos, the governor of the region, said that “more than 250 passengers were transferred by bus to Thessaloniki”, 130 kilometers north of the accident. “Unfortunately the number of injured and dead is likely to be high”he continued.
“Something very shocking”
A teenage survivor, who did not give his name, told Greek reporters as he got off one of the buses that just before the crash he felt heavy braking and saw sparks, then he there had been a sudden stop.
“Our car did not derail, but those in front derailed and were crushed”, he said, visibly shocked. He said the first carriage caught fire and he used a bag to break the window of his carriage and get out.
Mr Agorastos described the collision as “very powerful”. “The front section of the train was smashed. (…) We bring in cranes and special hoists to clear the debris and lift the railcars. There is debris strewn all around the crash site”he explained.
“We have experienced something very shocking”said Lazos, a passenger interviewed by the newspaper Protothema. “I am not injured but I am stained with the blood of the other people who were injured next to me”he said.
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The two hospitals in the Larissa region have been requisitioned to accommodate the many injured, according to local media Onlarissa.