Death toll rises in Greece after fatal train crash

• Two trains collided in Greece just before midnight Tuesday.
• At least 43 people were killed.
• More than 100 people were injured in the crash.

Greece experienced one of the most tragic incidents so far this year, when a freight train and a passenger train collided, killing at least 43 people and injuring over 100 more.

The passengers who were on the train were returning from Carnival celebrations. This was the first year it had been fully celebrated since the pandemic that hit in early 2020.

Death toll rises after fatal train crash in Greece

Rescue teams searched for survivors late Wednesday night amid the burned wreckage of two trains that collided in northern Greece, killing at least 43 people and crumbling cars into twisted knots of steel on the track.

The impact just before midnight Tuesday threw some passengers into the roof and out of windows. «My head hit the roof of the carriage with the jolt,» Stefanos Gogakos, who was in a rear car, told state broadcaster ERT. He said windows were smashed, showering passengers with glass.

One of the trains that crashed in Greece was carrying 350 passengers

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called the collision of a passenger train and a freight train «a horrific rail accident without precedent in our country,» and vowed a full and independent investigation.

The train, traveling from Athens to Thessaloniki, was carrying 350 passengers, many of them students returning from Carnival celebrations. Although it’s a double track, both trains were traveling in opposite directions on the same line near the Valley of Tempe, a river valley about 235 miles (380 kilometers) north of Athens.

The stationmaster was arrested after the accident

The authorities arrested the stationmaster at the last stop of the train, in the city of Larissa. They did not release the man’s name or reason for the arrest, but the stationmaster is responsible for rail traffic on that stretch of track. He is due to appear before a prosecutor on Thursday to be formally charged.

Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned, saying he was resigning “as a basic indication of respect for the memory of the people who died so unfairly.” Karamanlis said he had made “every effort” to improve a railway system that had been “in a state that doesn’t befit the 21st century.”

The government declared 3 days of national mourning

The government declared three days of national mourning starting Wednesday, as flags were flown at half mast in front of all the European Commission buildings in Brussels. Visiting the scene of the accident, Prime Minister Mitsotakis said the government must help recover the wounded and identify the dead, reports the AP.

“I can guarantee one thing: We will find out the causes of this tragedy, and we will do all that’s in our power so that something like this never happens again,” Mitsotakis said. Tuesday was the worst railway tragedy of Greece since 1968, when 34 people died in an accident in the southern region of the Peloponnese.