Greece train crash: The scene is ‘horrendously bizarre’, but questions now turn to how the tragedy happened
The police wave us through. We are allowed to drive off the motorway, down a rutted track and into a field, and there, in front of us, is a sight at once extraordinary and terrible.
A railway carriage, slumped on its side, its windows broken. The graffiti is still all over the paintwork, like a touchstone to normal life, but there are people with flashlights crawling underneath, looking for any signs of bodies.
There’s nothing normal about this at all. Nor of the freight containers that stand behind, remnants of the freight train that was hurtling along this track on Tuesday night.
Such a mundane, everyday thing – freight being moved; students coming back from holiday. And yet now charged with such sadness.
Dozens of people died here, in this field, when the two trains crashed into each other. From where we stand, it’s easy to see that the passenger train would have been emerging from a tunnel when this accident happened.
One wonders if the driver would have had any time to react. Like so many thoughts about this accident, it’s a bleak one.
The rain begins to fall. The search continues, with huge lights illuminating the wreckage and cranes looming over the scene.
It is quiet, and there is a sense of resolve, but there’s also a feeling of resignation. Something terrible happened here, and time can’t be reversed.
It feels so horrendously bizarre, so lit up against the night sky, that it could even be a film set. But, of course, it’s actually something desperate and ghastly. The evidence of a crash that should never have happened.
Because amid the despair there is also recrimination and a simmering desire for a reckoning. This was not a disaster that came as an absolute surprise to some in Greece, for the shoddy state of the nation’s small railway network has long been a source of contention.
Just a month ago, one of the rail unions warned that underinvestment had raised the spectre of a serious crash. The president of the rail regulator said signalling systems were still reliant on being operated manually, leaving them open to “human error”.
And so it was, here in northern Greece, that a passenger train emerged from a tunnel to smash head-first into a freight train coming in the opposite direction, along the same line.
Does the blame lay with one person, or is it the result of underinvestment?
If you run a railway, there cannot be a more fundamental failing than this. Just a matter of hours after the crash, the police arrested the station master from Larissa train station, charging him with a range of crimes, including multiple counts of manslaughter.
But already, across Greece, a debate has begun as to whether this is truly the responsibility of a single person, or simply the inevitable result of a failing network that is, by comparison with other European railway networks, outdated and open to human error.
Outside Larissa station, some hours after the station master is arrested, there is a vigil organised by students. Candles are lit and prayers are muttered. “I feel sad, and angry, about what has happened,” one of the students tells me, adding: “But I also know that I am lucky. I use that train. It could have been me on there.”
Another tells me there needs to be a full investigation, and that he feels a sense of disbelief. He doesn’t know when he will want to use the train service again.
This is a nation that has entered a period of national mourning. Train workers will stop work to register both respect towards the dead, and anger at what they see as a lack of investment. And the prosecutor will soon start to question the station master accused of causing all this death.
Disasters – especially avoidable disasters, and particularly train crashes – are followed by periods of introspection and doubt. But in this case, there is no question it is needed.
There is no excuse for what happened here, no excuse for the devastation that litters this field, for the dead, the dying and the injured.
It shouldn’t have happened. The challenge for Greece is how to ensure that it never happens again.
Israel pounded the outskirts of Gaza City overnight, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government vowed to press on with a planned offensive on the city.
Families streamed out of the city as the explosions hit.
“I stopped counting the times I had to take my wife and three daughters and leave my home in Gaza City,” said Mohammad, 40.
“No place is safe, but I can’t take the risk. If they suddenly begin the invasion, they will use heavy fire.”
Mahmoud Abedrabo mourns over the body of his son Hamada in Gaza City on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Others said they would prefer to die and not leave.
“We are not leaving, let them bomb us at home,” said Aya, 31, who has a family of eight, adding that they couldn’t afford to buy a tent or pay for the transportation.
“We are hungry, afraid and don’t have money,” she said.
Mourners pray next to the body of Palestinian boy Hamada Abedrabo on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Witnesses said that overnight they heard nonstop explosions in Zeitoun and Shejaia.
Tanks shelled houses and roads in Sabra, and buildings were blown up in Jabalia.
On Sunday, the IDF said its forces had returned to combat in Jabalia to strengthen its control of the area and dismantle militant tunnels.
Smoke rises following an Israeli strike in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
It added that the operation there “enables the expansion of combat into additional areas and prevents Hamas terrorists from returning to operate in these areas.”
This month, Israel approved a plan to seize control of Gaza City. The offensive isn’t expected to start for another few weeks.
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In the meantime, mediators in Egypt and Qatar are trying to resume ceasefire talks between the two sides.
On Friday, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said that Gaza City will be razed unless Hamas releases all its remaining hostages and ends the war on Israel’s terms.
Mourners transport the body of Ahmed Balata on 24 August. Pic: Reuters
Around half of Gaza’s two million residents currently live in the city and on Friday a global hunger monitor said that Gaza City and its surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine that will likely spread.
Israel said the monitor ignores steps Israel has taken since late July to increase aid supplies into and across Gaza.
Eight more people died of malnutrition and starvation in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry on Saturday.
281 people, including 114 children, have now died of malnutrition and starvation since the war started, according to the ministry.
The war began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel, mainly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
Since then, Israel has killed at least 62,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, and internally displaced nearly its entire population.
Two married couples have died after a British car veered off the road and crashed in Germany, according to police.
The fatal accident happened shortly after midnight on Saturday in the trees near a highway in the Kassel district, north of Hesse in central Germany.
The 32-year-old male driver, a 31-year-old female passenger, a 32-year-old female passenger, and a 30-year-old female passenger all died at the scene, despite the efforts of German emergency services.
Sky News understands UK officials have not been contacted for assistance.
At roughly 12.30am on Saturday, the car appears to have veered off the road and crashed into nearby trees around 30m from the road, according to the Kassel police department.
Pic: Feuerwehr Reinhardshagen
One of the victim’s phones automatically alerted the emergency services to the incident, who sent an ambulance to the scene.
Soon, fire engines, ambulances, command vehicles and emergency support vehicles were all dispatched.
When emergency workers arrived, the car was lying on its side, wedged between several trees.
It wasn’t until they removed the roof that they found all four passengers.
Pic: Feuerwehr Reinhardshagen
The accident happened on Highway L3229
The emergency workers who dealt with the victims were immediately supported by the specialist mental health workers at the fire station in Reinhardshagen.
“This high number of deaths is an extraordinary operation for our Reinhardshagen Volunteer Fire Department,” said a fire department spokesperson.
“For some of the emergency personnel, it is the first time they have been confronted with death in this way.
“Therefore, a great deal is being done to help us process these images. We will also discuss this among ourselves and within families, because not everyone can easily shake off what they have seen.”
An investigation into the accident is ongoing and is being conducted by the Hofgeismar police station.
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