After the train accident in Greece, the station master in court
Arrested on Wednesday after the collision between two trains which killed 38 people, the station master will have to explain himself to the courts on Thursday on the disaster.
A station master accused of being the cause of a train disaster that killed 38 people testified Thursday in court in Larissa, the city of central Greece closest to the accident. The 59-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday and prosecuted for “negligent homicide” and causing “bodily harm”.
He must explain how a train carrying 342 passengers and ten railway employees, linking Athens to Thessaloniki in the north of the country, was able to be authorized to use the same track as a freight convoy. The two trains collided head-on when they had been on the same track for several kilometres.
“Privatization kills”
Under the violence of the shock which occurred shortly before midnight, in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in the valley of Tempé, the locomotives and the cars of head were pulverized and the drivers of the two trains killed on the spot. “Everything shows that the drama is due, unfortunately, mainly to a tragic human error”, said Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Wednesday evening, as the controversy swells in the country over the state of the network which many consider dilapidated.
Some 500 people participated in the rescue, according to the Greek government.
AFP
Recounting having met relatives of victims during a visit to the scene and then to the Larissa hospital, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: “They asked me ‘why?’”. “We owe them an honest answer,” he added in a brief recorded television intervention. He decreed a three-day national mourning.
Contacted by AFP, the Italian public group Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), which controls the Hellenic Train railway company, privatized in 2017, did not immediately comment. Residents demonstrated in Larissa carrying “Privatization kills” banners.
“The Train of Terror”
“It was the terror train,” Pavlos Aslanidis, whose son is missing along with one of his friends, told reporters. The president of the OSE train drivers’ union, Kostas Genidounias, denounced the lack of safety, according to him, on this line which connects the two main cities of Greece. “All (signalling) is done manually. It is since the year 2000 that the systems do not work, “he got carried away on the television channel ERT.
Previously, he had also assured AFP that “no security system, remote control and traffic light were working”. “It was a train full of students, young people in their twenties,” Costas Bargiotas, a doctor at Larissa hospital, told reporters. “It’s really shocking to see the wagons crumpled like paper.”
“It’s a nightmare what I experienced (…) I’m still shaking,” testified to AFP a passenger, Angelos, 22, at the scene of the accident. “We felt the collision like a big earthquake,” he added. “Fortunately, we were in the penultimate car and we got out alive.”
“Never seen anything like it”
Some 500 people participated in the rescue, said the government spokesman. Many bodies were charred and some passengers could only be identified through DNA samples. In Larissa, where the injured were transported, the mayor, Apostolos Kalogiannis spoke of “floods of ambulances bringing burn victims, amputees, everything you can imagine”.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said one of the rescue workers working among the debris. In Larissa, residents watched in silence before laying white roses in memory of the victims. For Nikos Savva, a medical student from Cyprus, “one man shouldn’t pay for a whole sick railway network”.
“We have known for 30 years what the situation is,” added Larissa Hospital doctor Costas Bargiotas. Greek Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis tendered his resignation. If found guilty, the station master risks life in prison.
AFP
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