A passenger train and a freight convoy collided head-on near the Greek city of Larisa, in the center of the country. The latest updates from the fire department ensure this There are 36 dead and 85 injured in the train accident.

The collision took place in a valley near Larisa, approx 300 kilometers north of Athenswhen the passenger train wandered into the wrong lanein which the truck was driving. The violence of the collision, which occurred around midnight, crushed the locomotives and leading coaches and killed the two drivers instantly.

The passenger train deviated from the track. Photo: Zekas LEONIDAS / EUROKINISSI / AFP

The images showed charred carriages in a jumble of metal and broken windows. Other less damaged carriages were flipped onto their side as rescuers used ladders to free survivors trapped in the middle of the trains.

According to the Greek train company, 346 passengers and 20 crew members traveled between the two vehicles.

crash victims

“The death toll rose to 36”, spokesman for the Greek firefighters, Vassilis Vathrakogiannis, said at a press conference indicating that the operation to rescue passengers was still ongoing. In addition, “66 people were hospitalized, six of them in intensive care,” he added.

“We felt the impact like a big earthquake,” Angelos, a 22-year-old passenger at the crash site, told AFP.

“Fortunately we were in the penultimate carriage and made it out alive. There was a fire in the first cars and panic ensued. We are living a nightmare (…) I’m still shaking,” he added.

Photo: Sakis MITROLIDIS/AFP

“It is an unimaginable tragedy. Our thoughts today are with the families of the victims,” ​​the country’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said from the scene of the accident. and do everything we can to make sure it never happens again.”

Greek authorities have declared three days of mourning to watch over the victims of the accident, one of the worst in the country’s railway history.

Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevris said “most of the passengers were students” returning to Thessaloniki after a long weekend in Greece following a public holiday.