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The death toll rose to at least 43 and a railroad worker was arrested
Wednesday after the fiery head-on collision of passenger and freight
trains near the town of Tempe in northern Greece.

More than 80 people were injured, and the Greek government declared three
days of national mourning after the country’s deadliest rail crash.

Rail operator Hellenic Train said the passenger train was traveling from
Athens to Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city and a popular tourist destination that describes itself as the "gateway to the Aegean Sea." The
train carried 350 people, including many university students returning
home from Carnival, a three-day national party that precedes the Christian season of Lent.

Multiple cars derailed and at least three burst into flames after the two trains ran into each other at high speed just before midnight Tuesday, authorities said.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis pledged an independent
investigation and said the crash appeared to be “mainly due to a tragic
human error,” but did not elaborate.

Rescue crews spent hours combing through the wreckage, listening for the
calls of survivors. Cranes were brought in to peel away layers of twisted, burned steel.

Eight rail employees were killed, including the two drivers of the freight train and the two drivers of the passenger train, Greek Railroad Workers
Union President Yannis Nitsas said.

Train station official arrested
The stationmaster in the city of Larissa, near where two trains collided Tuesday night, has been accused of manslaughter by negligence and grievous bodily harm by negligence, police said. The stationmaster, who is in
charge of signaling, denies wrongdoing and has blamed the accident on a possible technical failure, the BBC reported.

A police statement identified the stationmaster only as a 59-year-old man.
He's due to appear before a prosecutor Thursday to be formally charged.

Two other people have been detained for questioning, police said.
Authorities did not immediately reveal their connection to the crash, and
no cause was immediately revealed.

'There was panic': Survivors recount horrifying moments
Some survivors said the collision felt like an earthquake.

"We heard a big bang," Stergios Minenis, 28, who jumped to safety from the wreckage, told Reuters. "We were turning over in the carriage until we
fell on our sides and until the commotion stopped. Then there was panic. Cables, fire. The fire was immediate. As we were turning over we were
being burned."

He described 10 to 15 seconds of chaos amid dangling cables, broken
windows and flames – "people screaming, people trapped."

Stefanos Gogakos was in a rear carriage and said the crash felt like an explosion. He could see flames at the front of the train.

“The glass in the windows shattered and fell on top of us,” he told state broadcaster 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.”

Greece ranks near bottom in rail safety in Europe
Multiple studies in the past few years have determined Greece is near the
top in European rail accidents per capita. From 2018 to 2020, Greece had
the highest fatality rate among 28 European countries, according to the European Union Agency for Railways.

Greek Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis, who resigned following the disaster, said he had tried to improve a railway system that had been “in
a state that doesn’t befit the 21st century.”

Kostas Genidounias, president of the association of Greek train drivers,
told ERT of long-running problems with the electronic systems that are
supposed to warn drivers.

"Nothing works. Everything happens manually throughout the Athens-
Thessaloniki network," Genidounias said. "Neither the indicators, nor the traffic lights, nor the electronic traffic control work."

<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/03/01/train-crash- derailment-greece/11372695002/>

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