Answers demanded over tragedy

The confirmed death toll of the railway accident in Thessaly, central Greece at midnight Tuesday climbed to 38 on Wednesday night, of whom 11 were identified, while 26 required a process of identification through genetic material. 

More than 30 relatives of passengers gave DNA samples to Larissa General Hospital, which were sent for analysis to the Police Criminal Investigation Department in Athens. It is estimated that there were still 17 people in the wreckage of the train. 

The accident occurred shortly before midnight on February 28 when a train bound for Thessaloniki with 342 passengers on board and 10 staff collided with a freight train heading for Athens with two drivers.

The stationmaster of Larissa was arrested and allegedly admitted during the preliminary testimony that he made a mistake, attributing it to “bad timing.”

In their descriptions to Kathimerini, fire brigade officers who were at the scene of the accident shortly after the collision of the two trains, said carriages “became blowguns.”

Transport and Infrastructure Minister Konstantinos A. Karamanlis announced his resignation, saying it “is my duty as the smallest sign of respect to the memory of the people who died so unjustly.”

He said in a statement that he is “assuming the responsibility for the deficiencies of the Greek state and the political system through the years.”

“When something so terrible happens, we cannot continue acting like it did not. I have not been involved in politics for many years, but I consider the trust placed by citizens in the political system to be an essential part of our democracy. This is called political responsibility,” he said.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced the formation of an independent experts committee to investigate the causes of the railway tragedy.

“I have just returned from the site of a tragedy that will forever remain in our collective memory. Tens of our fellow Greeks, most of them young people, lost their lives there, in a terrible rail accident that is unprecedented in the history of our country,” said Mitsotakis in his address, adding that Minister of State Georgios Gerapetritis will serve, until the elections, as a transitional transport minister.

“I have already asked him to quickly form an independent experts committee that will fully investigate the causes behind the accident. But it will also examine the longstanding delays in implementing railway projects. At the same time, justice will do its own job. Responsibilities will be assigned,” he stressed, declaring that everyone will work “to ensure that the ‘never again’ heard in Larissa does not become empty words. I promise you.”