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.
A woman has been arrested after 12 people were reportedly injured in a stabbing at Hamburg’s central train station in Germany.
An attacker armed with a knife targeted people on the platform between tracks 13 and 14, according to police.
They added that the suspect was a 39-year-old woman.
Police at the scene. Pic: AP
Officers said they “believe she acted alone” and investigations into the stabbing are continuing.
There was no immediate information on a possible motive.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
The attack happened shortly after 6pm local time (5pm UK time) on Friday in front of a waiting train, regional public broadcaster NDR reported.
A high-speed ICE train with its doors open could be seen at the platform after the incident.
Railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was “deeply shocked” by what had happened.
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Four tracks at the station were closed in the evening, and some long-distance trains were delayed or diverted.
Hamburg is Germany‘s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
In mid-May, the World Health Organisation assessed that there were “nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death”.
“This is one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,” its report concluded.
Warning: This article contains images of an emaciated child which some readers may find distressing
Israel‘s decision this week to reverse the siege and allow “a basic level of aid” into Gaza should help ease the immediate crisis.
But the number of aid trucks getting in, so far fewer than 100 per day, is considered dramatically too few by aid organisations working in Gaza, and the United Nations accuses Israel of continuing to block vital items.
Israel-Gaza latest: Gaza enduring ‘atrocious death and destruction’, UN boss warns
“Strict quotas are being imposed on the goods we distribute, along with unnecessary delay procedures,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres in New York on Friday.
“Essentials, including fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification supplies, are prohibited. Nothing has reached the besieged north.”
Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies.
Baby Aya at Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza is dangerously thin
“Today, we receive between 300 to 500 cases daily, with approximately 10% requiring admission. This volume of inpatient cases far exceeds the capacity of Rantisi hospital, as the facility is not equipped to accommodate such large numbers,” Jall al Barawi, a doctor at the hospital, told us.
At least 94% of the hospitals have sustained some damage, some considerable, according to the UN.
Jall al Barawi, a doctor at Rantisi hospital
Paramedic crews are close to running out of fuel to drive ambulances.
The lack of food, after an 11-week blockade, has left thousands malnourished and increasingly vulnerable to surviving injuries or recovering from other conditions.
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Children are the worst affected.
Our team in Gaza filmed with baby Aya at the Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza. She is now three months old and dangerously thin.
Her skin stretches over her cheekbones and eye sockets on her gaunt, pale face. Her nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Aya’s nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Lethal spiral
Her mother Sundush, who is only 19 herself, cannot get enough food to produce breastmilk. Baby formula is scarce.
Aya, like so many other young children, cannot get the vital nutrition she needs to grow and develop.
It’s a lethal spiral.
This is what Aya looked like shortly after she was born
“My daughter was born at a normal weight, 3.5kg,” Sundush tells us.
“But as the war went on, her weight dropped significantly. I would breastfeed her, she’d get diarrhoea. I tried formula – same result. With the borders closed and no food coming in, I can’t eat enough to give her the nutrients she needs.”
“I brought her to the hospital for treatment, but the care she needs isn’t available.
“The doctor said her condition is very serious. I really don’t want to lose her, because I lost my husband and she’s all I have left of him. I don’t want to lose her.”
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Aya and her mother Sundush
Some of the aid entering Gaza now is being looted. It is hard to know whether that is by Hamas or desperate civilians. Maybe a combination of the two.
The lack of aid creates an atmosphere of desperation, which eventually leads to a breakdown in security as everyone fights to secure food for themselves and their families.
Only by alleviating the desperation can the security situation improve, and the risk of famine abate.
World
Police launch ‘major operation’ after 12 people injured in knife attack at Hamburg train station
Twelve people are reported to have been injured after a knife attack at Hamburg’s central train station.
A “major operation” has been launched and a suspect was arrested, police said in a post on X.
The identity of the suspect has not been revealed.
Reports in Germany said the suspected attacker was a woman.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
Bild newspaper said the motive for the attack was so far unknown.
Hamburg is Germany’s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
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