LARISSA: A head-on collision between two trains in Greece killed 38 people, with many more still missing on Wednesday after the accident on a route plagued by years of safety warnings.

Pakistan extended its deepest condolences and sympathies to the government and people of Greece over the loss of precious lives in the tragic accident. “We pray for the quick recovery of those injured,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.

Two carriages were crushed and a third engulfed in fire when a passenger train and a freight train collided late Tuesday near the central city of Larissa, on a route plagued by years of safety warnings.

The fire department added that 57 people were still hospitalised, six of them in intensive care, while several were missing.

38 dead, dozens injured in deadliest train crash in country’s history; Pakistan extends sympathies over loss of precious lives

The accident left a tangled mess of metal and shattered glass in a field.

“Everything shows that the drama was, sadly, mainly due to a tragic human error,” Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a televised address.

He called it a “terrible train accident without precedent” in Greece that would be “fully” investigated.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire life,” said one rescue worker, emerging from the wreckage. “It’s tragic. Five hours later, we are finding bodies.”

In some cases, passengers are being identified from body parts, volunteer fireman Vassilis Iliopoulos told Skai TV, warning that the death toll would rise.

“It was the train of terror,” Pavlos Aslanidis, whose son is missing along with a friend, told reporters.

Greece’s transport minister submitted his resignation just hours after the accident.

“When something so tragic happens, we cannot continue as if nothing had happened,” Kostas Karam­anlis said in a public statement.

The passenger train, carrying over 350 people, had been travelling from the capital Athens to the northern city of Thessaloniki.

The 59-year-old station master of Larissa was arrested several hours after the accident and charged with negligent homicide.

Government spokesman Yiannis Economou said the two trains were left running on the same track for “several kilometres”.

But train unionists said the station master was likely a scapegoat as the safety shortcomings of the Athens-Thessaloniki railway line had been known for years.

Although authorities have declared three days of national mourning, protests were held on Wednesday evening at the Thessaloniki rail station, the city of Larissa and outside the Athens offices of the railway’s Italian-owned operating company, Hellenic Train.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2023