At least 26 people have been killed and at least 85 injured after two trains collided head-on in Greece, while the circumstances of the crash remained unclear.
The two trains – a passenger train travelling from Athens to the northern city of Thessaloniki, and a cargo train from Thessaloniki to Larissa – collided head-on outside the city of Larissa in central Greece late on Tuesday,
“The collision was very strong,” Konstantinos Agorastos, governor of the broader Thessaly region, told SKAI TV.
He added that the first four carriages had derailed, while the first two were “almost completely destroyed.”
The first two carriages, which caught fire after the collision, were “almost completely destroyed,” Agorastos said.
About 250 passengers were evacuated safely to Thessaloniki on buses. One passenger told state broadcaster ERT he managed to escape after breaking the train window with his suitcase.
“There was panic in the carriage, people were screaming,” a young man who was evacuated to a nearby bridge told SKAI TV.
“It was like an earthquake,” Angelos Tsiamouras, another passenger, told ERT.
Broadcaster SKAI showed footage of derailed carriages, badly damaged with broken windows and thick plumes of smoke, as well as debris strewn across the road. Rescue workers were seen carrying torches in carriages looking for trapped passengers.
“The evacuation of passengers is under way in very difficult conditions given the severity of the collision of the two trains,” fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Varthakogiannis said in a televised address.
In the early hours of Wednesday, footage from state broadcaster ERT showed rescue workers with headlights searching the surrounding fields for survivors.
Local media reported about 350 people were travelling on the passenger train.
– AAP
