The Greek authorities have declared three days of mourning following the deaths of people in a train accident on March 1, 2023.
Photo: REUTERS
Late in the afternoon, near the city of Larissa in central Greece, a major rail accident occurred. An intercity passenger train on the Athens-Thessaloniki route collided with a freight train. The trains collided head-on at high speed, Thessaly Governor Konstantinos Agorastos said. The investigation will have to answer the question of why the two trains ended up on the same track. However, for the time being, the police have already started conducting interrogations of the railway workers. The head of the station in Larisa was temporarily detained.
There were around 350 passengers on the passenger train at the time of the accident. 250 people were evacuated by bus to Thessaloniki. At least 36 people became victims of the tragedy, more than 85 were injured. According to representatives of the rescue service, 66 victims were taken to the hospital, six of them were identified in intensive care. Rescuers are still searching for survivors.
Late in the afternoon, near the city of Larissa in central Greece, a major rail accident occurred.
Photo: REUTERS
The accident occurred when the passenger train was leaving the tunnel. Four carriages with passengers derailed, while the first two, according to the governor, were completely destroyed. A fire started immediately after the collision.
Train passenger Stergios Minenis, 28, who survived, said the accident was a nightmare. According to him, there was a loud crash, after which a fire broke out.
The car flipped over and flipped on its side. A terrible panic began. The fire started instantly, the flames were both to the right and to the left, Reuters quoted Minenis as saying.
“It was like an earthquake,” recalls another Angelov passenger, Chiamuras.
“Now our priority is to help the injured, search for the missing and provide psychological support to the relatives of the victims who arrive in Larissa,” Greek government spokesman Yiannis Oikonomou said.
An intercity passenger train on the Athens-Thessaloniki route collided with a freight train.
Photo: REUTERS
In 1972, there was already a similar accident in the Larissa region, when 19 people died in a head-on collision between two trains.
Experts point out that the railway system is very outdated and requires serious modernization. Many trains operate on one-way tracks, and automatic control and signaling systems are lacking in many areas. More than six years ago, the Greek rail operator TRAINOSE was sold to Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane as part of an international bailout programme. The Greek authorities expected hundreds of millions of euros to be invested in rail infrastructure in the coming years, but the system still has serious problems.
Russia expresses its condolences to the people of Greece in connection with the rail accident, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
There were around 350 passengers on the passenger train at the time of the accident. 250 people were evacuated by bus to Thessaloniki.
Photo: REUTERS
LARGE RAILWAY ACCIDENTS
– One of the biggest accidents on the railway occurred on January 3, 1944 near the Spanish León. Then, during the collision of two trains, about 500 people died.
– In June 1981, a passenger train derailed near the Indian year of Patna. The cause of the tragedy was a hurricane, which threw seven carriages from the bridge into the Bagmati River. More than 800 people became victims.
– In 1989, near Ufa there was the biggest railway accident in the Soviet Union. At the time of the passage of two passenger trains, an explosion occurred as a result of the accident in a nearby oil pipeline. 575 people died, more than 600 passengers were injured.
At least 36 people became victims of the tragedy, more than 85 were injured.
Photo: REUTERS
– In 1998, in Germany, in the federal state of Lower Saxony, a car drove through a barrier and fell from a bridge onto a railway track. At that time the train was moving at a speed of 200 km/h. Due to the collision, several cars derailed and crashed into the support of the second bridge. Because of this, the structure collapsed, debris fell on the wagons. More than 100 people died.
– In 2004, as a consequence of the tragedy that occurred in Sri Lanka, some two thousand passengers died. The cause of the disaster was an earthquake and a tsunami. This is the biggest accident in world history.
