Two Greece trains crash, killing 36; transport minister resigns, station master arrested
- Collision between goods and passenger trains caused derailment and fire in northern Greece; many university students were on board, travelling home
- Authorities investigating why ‘trains moving in opposite directions happened to be on the same track for many kilometres’, said government spokesman
02:10
Fiery railway crash in central Greece kills at least 32, injures dozens
At least 36 people were killed and 72 injured in a train crash in Greece, after which Greece’s infrastructure and transportation minister Kostas Karamanlis stepped down.
Tuesday night’s crash, the country’s worst in decades, took place in the Tempe valley after a passenger train travelling from Athens to Thessaloniki collided with a goods 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 on Wednesday, “it is not possible to continue as if it didn’t happen.”
The passenger train was carrying around 350 people, including many university students. Multiple cars derailed and at least three burst into flames after the collision.
Authorities were investigating “the circumstances under which two trains moving in opposite directions happened to be on the same track for many kilometres”, according to a government spokesman.
A 59-year-old station master was arrested, officials said, charged with mass deaths and causing grievous bodily harm through negligence.
The man has denied wrongdoing and has attributed the accident to a possible technical failure, said police.