deadly crash kills at least 38

A tangle of pulverized and charred wagons. A scene of dread, after this head-on collision between two trains in Greece. From this heap of metal, the rescuers are still extracting, Wednesday evening, March 1, lifeless bodies. The passenger train joined the city of Athens to that of Thessaloniki. But near Larissa, he collided with a convoy of goods, arriving in the opposite direction, on exactly the same track. It is 11:30 p.m. on the night of March 1 when the shock, of incredible violence, occurs. 342 passengers are on board. The two locomotives are dislocated, the two drivers killed on the spot.

Lack of safety on the line

“We all panicked, we left breaking the windows, and there, we saw the chaos”, testifies a traveler. The firefighters, armed with ladders, had the greatest difficulty in extracting the wounded and the dead in the middle of the night. The survivors are evacuated in buses. A Greek union of train drivers denounces the lack of safety on this line. The Prime Minister, who came to the scene, promised an investigation to determine who was responsible. This train was crowded with young people, it was returning to Thessaloniki, after a long weekend due to a public holiday in Greece.