Greece has declared three days of nationwide mourning after a high-speed passenger prepare collided with a freight prepare, killing no less than 43 folks and injuring dozens extra. It is the nation’s deadliest rail crash ever.
Why did a high-speed passenger prepare carrying lots of of individuals collide with an oncoming freight prepare?
What induced the crash?
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“Every little thing on this tragedy factors, sadly, primarily to human error,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis mentioned in a televised deal with on Wednesday.
Authorities are working to ascertain how the prepare collided with one other carrying delivery containers and why they have been travelling on the identical observe “for many kilometres”.
It is believed the freight prepare was travelling at speeds of as much as 160 kilometres per hour and the passenger prepare at 140kph.
The trains collided, head-on, close to the city of Larissa, some 321km north of Athens.
Earlier, the passenger prepare had departed from the Greek capital, Athens, and was headed to the northern metropolis of Thessaloniki.
What can we find out about victims?
The passenger prepare was carrying 342 travellers and 10 crew. There have been two crew on the freight prepare.
Officers mentioned no less than 43 folks have been killed, nevertheless, this quantity is predicted to rise.
Authorities mentioned excessive temperatures from the ensuing hearth within the first carriage made it exhausting to determine these trapped inside, or to find out what number of had died.
They mentioned 66 folks have been taken to hospital, with six of these to intensive care.
Lots of the victims are regarded as college college students, returning residence after an extended vacation weekend.
Eight rail staff are among the many lifeless, together with the two drivers of the freight prepare and the two drivers of the passenger prepare.
Mr Mitsotakis described the crash as “an unthinkable tragedy”.
“Our ideas at present are with the family members of the victims,” the Greek prime minister mentioned.
Station grasp arrested, transport minister resigns
The native station grasp, accountable for signalling, has been charged with inflicting mass deaths via negligence and inflicting grievous bodily hurt via negligence, a police official mentioned.
Nonetheless, the 59-year-old man denied any duty, saying the accident was as a result of a doable technical failure.
The nation’s transport minister has additionally resigned.
Kostas Karamanlis mentioned he was stepping down “as a fundamental indication of respect for the reminiscence of the individuals who died so unfairly”, and was taking duty for the state’s “long-standing failures” to repair a railway system not match for the twenty first century.
What have survivors of the crash mentioned?
Passengers described a “nightmarish” crash.
“There was panic … The hearth was fast,” Stergios Minenis, a 28-year-old who jumped to security, mentioned.
“As we have been turning over we have been being burned, hearth was proper and left,” he mentioned.
Some kicked via home windows to flee the inferno. Others have been flung as much as 40 metres on affect.
Greater than 200 individuals who have been unhurt or suffered solely minor accidents have been taken by bus to Thessaloniki, 130km to the north. Police took their names as they arrived to trace anybody who could also be lacking.
Railway staff say they’d strike
In Athens, round 1,000 folks protested outdoors the workplaces of Hellenic Prepare, a department of the rail community, the place some hurled stones at home windows.
“Ache has became anger for the handfuls of lifeless and wounded colleagues and fellow residents,” the employees’ union mentioned in a press release saying the strike.
“The disrespect proven through the years by governments to the Greek railways led to the tragic outcome.”
Greece has declared three days of nationwide mourning.
Reuters/AP
Supply By https://www.abc.web.au/information/2023-03-02/greece-train-crash-kills-many-likely-students/102043186