Sad news: Fiery Greece train collision kills 26, injures at least 85

[cteno4]

TEMPE, Greece (AP) — A passenger train carrying hundreds of people collided with an oncoming freight train in a fiery wreck in northern Greece early Wednesday, killing 26 and injuring at least 85, officials said.

 

Read the full story

 

jeff

[marknewton]

Awful. Judging by the photos I've seen I doubt any of the crew survived, so determining the cause will be difficult. Very sad for all involved.

 

Mark.

[Tony Galiani]

A BBC News headline indicated the station master has been arrested.  Though I did not read the story as I find the news so sad.

 

Tony

[marknewton]

Yes Tony, I saw that mentioned. It seems to be the practice in a number of European countries to use the judiciary to investigate railway accidents. I'm not convinced this is the best approach. The European Parliament and the Council issued the Railway Safety Directive 2016/798 (RSD) which has the requirement for each member state to ensure that "investigations of certain accidents and incidents be conducted by a National Investigation Body (NIB), independent in its organisation, legal structure and decision-making from any party whose interests could conflict with the tasks entrusted it."

However, according to a Greek language article I read this morning:

 

"In Greece to date there is no special commission to investigate railway accidents, or to be more precise, it exists only on paper, as it was established only very recently, with the law 5014 passed on the initiative of the resigned Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Costas Karamanlis. According to the law, the burden of investigating the unprecedented railway tragedy should be assumed by this newly established committee, which, however, for now remains inactive. A rail accident investigation body was established in 2015 as an independent authority, tasked with issuing a finding on the rail accident in Tree, in which two OSE employees and a passenger lost their lives. However, this authority was replaced by the new law mentioned above."

 

Which presumably explains why the Larissa station master has been arrested. Other articles I read confirmed that, as I suspected, none of the loco crews survived. I don't for a minute want to diminish or downplay the loss of life among the passengers, but it upsets me greatly when fellow train crew are killed at work.

 

Mark.