Two trains collide in Greece

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday that human error caused the collision between two trains that killed at least 38 people in one of the country's worst train disasters.

And in a televised speech to the prime minister seeking a new term in the elections scheduled for this year, everything indicates that a tragic human error was the main cause of the disaster.

The latest developments

Rescuers on Wednesday searched among burning carriages for survivors and bodies after a passenger and freight train collided in central Greece overnight, killing at least 36 people and injuring dozens.

Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned, saying he felt it was his "duty to step down as a simple sign of respect for the memory of people who died unjustly".

The accident occurred near the town of Tempe, about 380 kilometers north of Athens, but the director of the train station of the nearby city of Larissa was arrested.

• The speed of the two trains when they collided was not clear, but local broadcaster ERT said it was more than 140 kilometers per hour.

• Survivors said that the impact of the collision knocked several passengers out of the windows of the train carriages, and the TV channel quoted rescuers as saying that they found some bodies of the victims about 30 to 40 meters from the accident site.

• Several carriages derailed, at least 3 of which caught fire, and one carriage was on top of the rubble of two others.

• Fire Department spokesman Vassilis Vartakoyannis said: "The temperature reached 1,300 degrees Celsius, which makes it even more difficult to identify the people inside the vehicle.

• Officials said many of the about 350 people on the commuter train were students returning from Greece's raucous Carnival.

• This year was the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020 that the 3-day carnival, which precedes Lent, was fully celebrated.

• Greek President Katerina Sakellarpolou cut off an official visit to Moldova and returned to her country, visited the site of the accident, and laid flowers at the train rubble.

• The government declared three days of national mourning from Wednesday, while flags were flown at half-mast in front of all European Commission buildings in Brussels.