TEMPE, Greece (AP) — Rescuers delved Wednesday through flattened, burned-out carriages for survivors and bodies after a passenger train and a freight train crashed head-on in central Greece overnight, killing at least 36 people and injuring scores.
Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned Wednesday, saying he felt it was his “duty” to step down “as a basic indication of respect for the memory of the people who died so unfairly.”
The cause of the crash near the Vale of Tempe, about 235 miles north of Athens, was not immediately clear, but the stationmaster in the nearby city of Larissa was arrested Wednesday. The police did not release his name. Another two people have been detained for questioning.
It’s unclear at what speed the two trains were travelling when they ran into each other just before midnight Tuesday, but state broadcaster ERT said it was more than 87 miles per hour.
Survivors said the impact threw several passengers through the windows of train cars. ERT quoted rescuers saying they found some victims’ bodies 100-130 feet from the impact site.
Stefanos Gogakos said it felt like an explosion, while from his rear carriage flames could be seen at the front of the train.
“The glass in the windows shattered and fell on top of us,” he told ERT. “My head hit the roof of the carriage with the jolt. Some people started to climb out through the windows because there was smoke in the carriage. The doors were closed but in a few minutes train staff opened them and we got out.”
Multiple cars derailed and at least three burst into flames. On Wednesday, one carriage lay atop the crumpled remains of another two.
“Temperatures reached 2,372 Fahrenheit, which makes it even more difficult to identify the people who were in it,” fire service spokesperson Vassilis Varthakoyiannis said.
Many of the 350 people aboard the passenger train were students returning from Greece’s raucous Carnival, officials said. This year was the first time the three-day festival, which precedes Lent, was celebrated in full since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Visiting the accident scene, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that the government must help the injured recover and identify the dead.
“I can guarantee one thing: We will find out the causes of this tragedy and we will do all that’s in our power so that something like this never happens again,” Mitsotakis said.
