The ‘worst mission’ ever

Seasoned emergency workers who were dispatched to the scene of Tuesday’s crash near Tempe in northern Thessaly have been describing the physical and emotional challenges of working on what is the biggest train wreck in Greece’s history.

Kathimerini reached out to the Hellenic Rescue Team, which was able to get members of its branches in central Greece to the scene of the accident within half an hour after it was reported to headquarters.

‘I’ve seen accidents before, but I have never seen anything like this’

“When we got there, we saw paramedics from the ambulance service already pulling out people who were injured. The mobilization of the state machine was immediate. What we encountered is hard to describe. It was like a bomb site,” said Yiannis Xanthopoulos, a member of the Larissa branch of the Hellenic Rescue Team, explaining that the call to head to the scene came at midnight on Tuesday.

For Xanthopoulos, the fact that many of the dead and injured are young has been one of the hardest aspects of the mission.

“More and more bodies were discovered. Bodies, metal, plastic, chairs, bags were all mangled together. It is the worst mission I have ever been on. There were so many young men and women. We felt like we were pulling our own children from the wreckage,” he said.

The number of young casualties was also shocking to Sotiris Papamarkakis, a member of the Magnisia branch of the Hellenic Rescue Team, who spoke to Kathimerini from the scene of the accident on Wednesday afternoon.

“I spent 30 years working on the railway as a chief conductor. I’ve seen accidents before, but I have never seen anything like this. We’re talking about a gnarled mass of metal,” he said.

“The search operation is slow because we need to use heavy machinery to create corridors that will allow the rescuers access. This can only be done with very large equipment because the metal is so mangled, and this takes time,” Papamarkakis said, describing the scene as a “nightmare.”