Greek Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned on Wednesday after the collision of a passenger train with a freight train that killed at least 36 and injured dozens on Tuesday evening.
Karamanlis stated that he considered it his “duty” to step down “as a simple matter of respect for the memory of the people who died so unjustly”..
The cause of the head-on collision that took place on Tuesday evening near the Valley of Tempe, some 380 kilometers north of Athens, is not yet known, but the director of the railway station in the neighboring town of Larissa was arrested by police today. police, who did not give his name.
Two other people were also detained for police questioning.
According to the fire service, at least 66 people had to be taken to hospital, six of whom are in intensive care.
Passengers who suffered minor injuries or left unharmed were transported by bus to Thessaloniki, 130 kilometers north of the country.
The Hellenic Train railway company said the passenger train, which connected Athens to the city of Thessaloniki, in the north of the country, was carrying about 350 people at the time of the collision.
It is not known how fast the two trains were traveling when they collided head-on shortly before midnight on Tuesday, but Greek public radio-television ERT reported that they were traveling at more than 140 kilometers per hour.
Survivors reported that the impact threw several passengers through the windows of the carriage and ERT cited members of the rescue teams as saying they found the bodies of some victims between 30 and 40 meters from the crash site.
Several carriages derailed and at least three caught fire. Today it was possible to see a carriage on top of what was left of two others.
“Temperatures reached 1,300 degrees Celsius, making it even more difficult to identify the people on the passenger train,” said fire spokesman Vassilis Varthakoyiannis.
Authorities say many of the 350 people aboard the passenger train were students returning home after celebrating Greece’s lively carnival.
This was the first year in which the three-day festivities, which precede Lent, were fully celebrated since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated at the scene of the accident that the government should help recover the injured and identify the fatalities.
“One thing I can guarantee is that we will find out the causes of this tragedy and will do everything we can to ensure that nothing like this happens again,” Mitsotakis said.
The government has today declared three days of national mourning and all European Commission buildings in Brussels have flags flown at half-mast.
Source: DN
