Hundreds of individuals hurried to contribute blood after a minimum of 36 individuals passed away when a freight and traveler train clashed in Greece.
A passenger train travelling between Athens and Thessaloniki slammed into a cargo train travelling from Thessaloniki to Larissa just before midnight Tuesday.
Carriages once filled with more than 350 passengers and staff were crumpled and twisted into knots of smoky metal in one of the country’s deadliest rail accidents in recent years.
Many of the young people who died were college students returning from carnival celebrations in Athens – the first since the coronavirus pandemic.
Around 85 people found injured within the buckled carriages or injured by the ensuing fire have been taken to hospitals in Larissa, the closest city to the site.
Shock, anger and grief were the emotions Greeks felt this morning as news of the fatal wreck spread.
Within hours, Central Square in Larissa was lined by hundreds of people voluntarily donating blood.
An emergency blood drive was organised by the Greek humanitarian group, the Hellenic Red Cross, in collaboration with two local hospitals to help those injured.
The former prime minister and current leader of the opposition, Alexis Tsipras, was among those donating blood outside the city’s general hospital.
Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned today, stating he felt it was his ‘duty’ to step down ‘as a basic indication of respect for the memory of the people who died so unfairly’.
‘When something so tragic happens, it’ s difficult to continue as if absolutely nothing had actually taken place,’ he stated.
‘It’ s a truth that we acquired the Greek train in a state that is not fitting for the 21 st century,’ he included.
‘In those three and a half years we made every effort to improve this reality. Unfortunately, those efforts were not adequate to avert such a tragedy.’
The reason for the crash near the Vale of Tempe, a river valley about 235 miles north of Athens, is still uncertain. It took place soon after the traveler train came out from under a highway underpass.
Yiannis Ditsas, head of the Greek train employees union, informed Skai tv that the trains raced towards one another for 12 minutes without recognizing it as the automated signalling at the area of the crash had not been working.
The state’s train system, he stated, has the worst security performance history in Europe.
Police stated this afternoon that the station supervisor in Larissa, about 20 miles from the crash website, has actually been apprehended.
Local news media reported that the male, 59, who supervised of signalling, had actually directed the delivery train onto the very same track as the traveler train.
The stationmaster has actually been charged with triggering mass deaths through neglect and triggering severe physical damage through neglect, a cops authorities stated.
He has actually rejected any obligation, associating it to a possible technical failure, and will be brought prior to a detective tomorrow.
Two other rail authorities have actually likewise been questioned.
Survivors have actually explained scenes of scary. The effect of the 2 trains smashing into one another sent out riders flying through train cars and truck windows, while others were buried underneath metal beams.
State broadcaster ERT priced estimate rescuers stating they discovered victims’ bodies 100 to 130 feet from the effect website.
Fire brigade spokesperson Vassilis Varthakogiannis stated temperature levels in the very first carriage had actually reached 1,300 ° C, making it difficult to recognize those caught inside.
Stefanos Gogakos, who remained in a rear carriage, stated the crash seemed like a surge. Flames, he stated, taken in the front of the train, burning it to a shell.
‘The glass in the windows shattered and fell on top of us,’ he informed ERT.
‘My head struck the roofing system of the carriage with the shock. Some individuals began to climb up out through the windows due to the fact that there was smoke in the carriage.
‘The doors were closed but in a few minutes train staff opened them and we got out.’
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