Cargo and passenger trains collide head-on; death toll expected to rise, say officials
A crane, firefighters and rescuers operate after a collision in Tempe near Larissa city, Greece, on Wednesday. Pic/AP
A passenger train and a cargo train collided head-on in Greece on Tuesday night, killing at least 36 people and injuring 85 as the country’s deadliest rail crash in decades threw entire carriages off the tracks.
A fire brigade official said the death toll was expected to rise. Sixty-six of those injured were hospitalised, six of whom in intensive care, the official said. The crash occurred as the passenger train emerged from a tunnel.
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Derailed carriages, badly damaged with broken windows and thick plumes of smoke, could be seen on the site. One passenger carriage stood on its side at almost 90 degrees from the rest of the wrecked train, with other derailed carriages tilting precariously.
“There was panic ... the fire was immediate, as we were turning over we were being burned, fire was right and left,” said Stergios Minenis, a 28-year-old passenger who jumped to safety from the wreckage.
A passenger who escaped from the fifth carriage told Skai TV: “Windows were being smashed and people were screaming ... One of the windows caved in from the impact of iron from the other train.”
The train carried around 350 passengers. Many were evacuated to Thessaloniki, where one woman ran to embrace her daughter as she disembarked from a bus with other survivors. “Mum don’t, I’m hurt,” the daughter said.
Another woman, who was waiting there, said her child was not picking up the phone. The head of emergency unit in Larissa hospital Apostolos Komnos said most of the dead were young people, in their 20s. Many of the passengers would have been returning home after a long holiday weekend marking the beginning of Greek Orthodox lent.
350
No. of people on the passenger train
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