In the central city of Larissa on Thursday, a station master who was on duty when Greece’s deadliest train accident occurred will give testimony about the tragedy that left the nation in grief and claimed dozens of lives.
The 59-year-old will testify before a judge to explain why a passenger train with more than 350 people on board was permitted to travel several kilometers on the same track as a freight train.
Before midnight on Tuesday, two trains crashed near a tunnel outside Larissa. A third carriage took fire, trapping people inside, and two carriages were crushed.
“It was a student train, full of kids…in their 20s,” Costas Bargiotas, a senior orthopedic doctor at Larissa General Hospital, told Skai TV.
“It was truly shocking… the carriages crumpled like paper,” he said.
It was a “terrible train accident without precedent” in Greece, according to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who announced his intention to run for re-election this year. He also pledged that the tragedy would be “fully” probed.
