From the first investigations, the station master of Larissa would not have turned the key to change the track of one of the two trains. No one then warned the engineer that they were on the wrong line. A double fatal forgetfulness.
The train crash in Greece
42 dead and over 100 injured in train crash in central Greece, where a passenger and a freight train collided head-on. Many students among the victims returned from Athens to Thessaloniki. Almost nothing remains of some carriages: it is for this reason that there are still many missing, perhaps even dozens according to public television (but there are no precise estimates). The station master arrested who started both trains on the same track. A mistake and an antiquated and inadequate railway system: a deadly mix.
During the first interrogation, the station master would have attributed everything to a fault, but he was soon provided with expert documents according to which the system with which the train changes line worked normally. A human error is the most probable hypothesis, therefore. After the first mistake, no one also warned the driver that he was speeding towards disaster. The stationmaster also reportedly claimed that another train had a problem earlier and was overworked. For TV Ert, there are many elements that give a relatively clear picture of what exactly happened and there will be no gaps in the investigation. There is already an audio conversation between the train driver and the station master in the Greek media.
According to the story of a Greek journalist of the Bbc , the trains were traveling at great speed because they didn’t know the other was coming and the impact was so violent that “there is nothing left of the first two carriages” after the accident. After the train disaster, the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Kostas Karamanlis resigned. “I have been in politics for a few years, but I consider it a necessary element of our democracy that the citizens of our country have faith in the political system. This is called political responsibility. For this reason, I resign from the position of Minister of Infrastructure and Transport. This is what I feel the duty to do as a minimum sign of respect for the memory” of the victims, the minister said in a statement.
The massacre of students
Many university students on board the train: this was reported by the mayor of Tempé, Yorgos Manolis. They were returning to Thessaloniki after an extended weekend due to Carnival in Greece. Now three days of national mourning.
The premier: “Tragic human error”
In a televised address after his return from the site of the train crash that left at least 43 dead, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the collision was “mainly” due to “tragic human error”. “Dozens of our fellow citizens, most of them young, lost their lives in a horrible train accident, unprecedented in our country,” he said, adding that the decision to resign by the transport minister was honorable. The heads of the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) and its subsidiary ERGOSE have also submitted their resignations.