After years of pandemic-forced cancellations, Athens final weekend hosted carnival, and scores of Greeks flocked in to rejoice. Vaios Vlachos and his girlfriend, who dressed up as marble busts, have been amongst them earlier than they rushed to catch an evening practice on Tuesday that may get them residence in time for work the subsequent morning.
However shortly earlier than midnight, the practice that they and tons of of others have been touring on collided with a freight practice close to Tempe, in northern Greece, killing 47 folks, the worst practice crash within the nation’s historical past. Mr. Vlachos, 32, was nonetheless lacking as of Wednesday night time, and his girlfriend was in an intensive care unit.
“It’s wrenching,” mentioned Mr. Vlachos’s brother, Evangelos, including that as time passes, he loses hopes of discovering his brother alive. “Each hour looks like poison.”
Greece is anticipated to carry a common election within the coming weeks, and though it was not but clear if or how the accident would affect it, there have been indicators that the crash was reverberating in a rustic that has the worst practice security report in Europe.
On Wednesday in Athens, protesters clashed with the police exterior the headquarters of Hellenic Practice, the corporate accountable for sustaining Greece’s railways. Demonstrations have been additionally reported in Larissa, close to the location of the crash, and Thessaloniki, to the north. The Panhellenic Federation of Railway Workers declared a 24-hour strike, so no trains have been operating on Thursday in Greece.
The passenger practice was carrying about 350 folks, and 57 are nonetheless hospitalized, together with some in intensive care. It’s unclear how many individuals are unaccounted for.
Greece’s well being minister, Thanos Plevris, mentioned that most of the passengers have been younger folks or school college students who had presumably been profiting from a three-day financial institution vacation weekend to rejoice carnival, the interval of revelry simply earlier than Lent. Thessaloniki, the practice’s vacation spot, is Greece’s second largest metropolis, and it is called a college metropolis internet hosting tens of 1000’s of scholars.
On Wednesday night time, Georgios Smirnopoulos, a taxi driver in Thessaloniki, drove by town’s Aristotle College, the nation’s largest, and pointed at it, questioning if any of the crash victims studied there.
“It was a number of college students, of younger folks,” he mentioned. “In the present day is a tragic day.”
Mr. Vlachos and his girlfriend, who’ve been collectively for years, headed to the capital with their handcrafted costumes. They normally journey between Athens and Thessaloniki by automobile, Mr. Vlachos’s brother mentioned, however greater fuel costs had prompted them to as an alternative take the practice.
“To economize,” Mr. Vlachos mentioned. “And since they thought it was safer.”
A few of the our bodies have but to be recognized as a result of the crash was so violent, leaving them unrecognizable. Mr. Vlachos’s mom gave medical doctors a pattern of her blood in case they wanted it for a DNA identification of her son.
As rescuers eliminated the stays of a sufferer from the wreckage of the 2 trains’ engines, one of many employees mentioned that it was unimaginable to know who it was. On Thursday, some have been nonetheless hoping that it was not their brother, sister or good friend.
“We don’t know what occurred to her,” Christina Mitska mentioned of her 22-year-old sister, Ifigeneia Mitska. “Nobody has seen her.”
Throughout Greece, anger mounted over the nation’s dismal practice security report. The 2 trains had raced towards one another for 12 minutes earlier than colliding, in line with the pinnacle of the Greek rail employees’ union.
A railway official mentioned that digital monitoring and warning programs alongside the observe didn’t work correctly, partly due to finances issues and partly as a result of the system was not totally operational to stop such accidents. The federal government has introduced an impartial investigation into the reason for the catastrophe.
Mr. Vlachos, awaiting phrase on his brother, mentioned that it was a tragedy that the safety programs which may have saved folks’s lives weren’t in place. “If we now have misplaced him,” he mentioned, “I don’t suppose that the state or any state could make up for one thing like that.”
