A minimum of 46 individuals had been killed when a passenger prepare collided head-on with a cargo prepare exterior the town of Larissa.
Dozens of individuals had been killed when two trains collided head-on in central Greece, within the nation’s deadliest rail crash on document.
Here's what we all know to this point.
What occurred and when?
- A passenger prepare travelling from the capital, Athens, to the northern metropolis of Thessaloniki collided with a cargo prepare carrying delivery containers coming from the other way on the identical observe.
- The passenger prepare was carrying 342 travellers and 10 crew, whereas there have been two crew members on the cargo prepare.
- The prepare left Athens with passengers at 7:22pm (19:22 GMT). Authorities had been knowledgeable in regards to the accident simply earlier than midnight.
- The derailing carriages burst into flames after the collision. Temperatures in a single carriage rose to 1,300 levels Celsius (2,370 levels Fahrenheit) after it caught hearth.
- As of Thursday morning, the loss of life toll was 46.
The place did it occur?
- The crash occurred exterior the central city of Larissa, some 376km (235 miles) north of Athens, within the municipality of Tempi.
(Al Jazeera)
What do we all know in regards to the casualties?
- Lots of the victims had been regarded as college college students returning to their properties after an extended vacation weekend.
- Numerous our bodies had been charred past recognition and a few passengers had been being recognized from physique components.
- Family members of the victims went to a hospital in Larissa the place they had been requested to offer DNA samples to be checked towards these retrieved from the crash web site.
- Greece’s firefighting service mentioned 57 individuals remained hospitalised late on Wednesday, together with six in intensive care.
- Greater than 15 others had been discharged after receiving remedy.
- Greater than 200 individuals who had been unhurt or suffered minor accidents had been taken by bus to Thessaloniki, 130km (80 miles) to the north.
What went improper?
- Authorities are nonetheless investigating the circumstances that led to the crash.
- Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis mentioned it occurred “primarily as a result of a tragic human error” however didn't elaborate.
- Police have arrested the Larissa station grasp, who's answerable for rail site visitors on that stretch of the tracks. He was as a result of seem earlier than a prosecutor on Thursday to be formally charged.
- Investigators had been attempting to find out why each trains had been on the identical observe “for a lot of kilometres”.
- Yiannis Ditsas, head of the railway staff union, informed Skai TV that computerized signalling on the crash web site had not been working.
- Trade specialists say methods that sign whether or not a observe is already occupied by setting off a crimson mild or that routinely function a change to divert a prepare onto one other observe should not correctly maintained.
- “Purple lights malfunction fairly often or they activate for no motive, and the tradition within the Greek rail system is that drivers and station masters have discovered to disregard them,” mentioned Al Jazeera’s John Psaropoulos, reporting from Larissa.
- “The final dialog recorded between the station grasp and the passenger prepare driver suggests precisely such an incident of merely ignoring the signalling. The station grasp says, ‘you're good to go, you're good to go,’; the prepare driver wasn’t positive if the signalling was right for him to depart,” he added.
- Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned, saying he was taking accountability for the state’s longstanding failures to repair a railway system that, he mentioned, “was not match for the twenty first century”.
- Nikos Tsouridis, a retired prepare driver coach, mentioned drivers concerned within the crash had died “as a result of there have been no security measures”. “And why had been there no security measures? The station grasp made a mistake, he acknowledged it. However absolutely there ought to be a security mechanism to fall again on,” he mentioned.
- Prepare unionists say the security shortcomings of the Athens-Thessaloniki railway line, the principle one within the nation, had been identified for years.
- Greece bought railway operator TRAINOSE below its worldwide bailout programme in 2017 to Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, anticipating tons of of tens of millions of euros to be invested in rail infrastructure within the coming years.
What's the newest on the bottom?
- Rescuers resumed a search on Thursday for survivors.
- A complete of seven charred our bodies had been recovered from the passenger prepare’s third wagon, which served as a restaurant.
- Authorities spokesman Giannis Oikonomou was anticipated to replace the media round noon on Thursday.
- Authorities have declared three days of nationwide mourning.
How have individuals reacted?
- Railway staff nationwide walked off the job on Thursday, saying successive governments had ignored repeated calls for to enhance security requirements.
- In Athens, individuals in tons of marched late on Wednesday to protest towards the prepare deaths.
- Minor clashes broke out as some protesters threw stones on the workplaces of Greece’s rail operator and riot police and set dumpsters on hearth. No arrests or accidents had been reported.
- Internationally, flags flew at half-staff exterior all European Fee buildings in Brussels whereas world leaders expressed their condolences. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pope Francis had been amongst these to condole.
What do survivors say?
- Some survivors described the second when the crash befell.
- “There was panic … The fireplace was quick. As we had been turning over, we had been being burned; the hearth was proper and left,” Stergios Minenis, a 28-year-old who jumped to security, informed Reuters.
- “Home windows had been being smashed, and other people had been screaming … One of many home windows caved in from the affect of iron from the opposite prepare,” one other passenger, who escaped from the fifth carriage, informed Skai TV.
Photographs
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