At least 36 people were killed and 72 more were injured in a train crash in northeast Greece late Tuesday night, according to the local fire department. In response to the accident, Greece’s infrastructure and transportation minister Kostas Karamanlis stepped down Wednesday afternoon.
(Bloomberg) — At least 36 people were killed and 72 more were injured in a train crash in northeast Greece late Tuesday night, according to the local fire department. In response to the accident, Greece’s infrastructure and transportation minister Kostas Karamanlis stepped down Wednesday afternoon.
The crash, the country’s worst in decades, took place in the Tempe valley after a passenger train traveling from Athens to Thessaloniki collided with a cargo train, igniting a fire. The death toll is expected to rise as temperatures in the burning train car reached 2,372 degrees Fahrenheit.
“When something so tragic happens,” Karamanlis said in his resignation statement, “it is not possible to continue as if it didn’t happen.”
Authorities are investigating “the circumstances under which two trains moving in opposite directions happened to be on the same track for many kilometers,” said government spokesman Ioannis Oikonomou.
The passenger train was operated by the company formerly known as Trainose, which was renamed Hellenic Train in 2021. In 2017, it was sold to the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane Group.
The fire brigade said it learned of the accident, which took place near the city of Larissa, just before midnight on Tuesday. Of the 72 passengers who have been hospitalized, six are in intensive care units.
A search and rescue operation is ongoing, and authorities have launched a probe into the cause of the accident. So far, a station master has been arrested.
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