Agony for Greek crash victims' families as bodies start to be identified

At least 57, among them many university students, were killed in Greece's deadliest train accident late on Tuesday, when a passenger train and a cargo train collided head-on, at high speed. Police said 31 bodies have now been identified - many from DNA tests as the crash was so violent - and they have started informing families.

Next to a hospital in Larissa, Panos and Mirela Routsi well up with tears as they beg for news of their 22-year old son Denis, who had travelled to Athens to see friends and was returning home in the train that never reached its destination. At least 57, among them many university students, were killed in Greece's deadliest train accident late on Tuesday, when a passenger train and a cargo train collided head-on, at high speed.

Police said 31 bodies have now been identified - many from DNA tests as the crash was so violent - and they have started informing families. "Eleven families have been informed and this painful process is continuing. In the labs, the identification process is under way around the clock and all other work has been suspended," a police spokesperson said.

Denis' mother, Mirela Routsi, who showed reporters a picture of her young son, beaming, on her mobile, was still waiting. "I have given DNA, I don't have any news at the moment. I am appealing to those that were saved in that wagon if someone recognised him, if they can contact me ... (to tell me) if he was in his seat, if he had gotten up, if he moved," she said.

As anger grew in Greece over the train crash, which the government attributed to human error but which unions say had become unavoidable due to lack of maintenance and faulty signalling, Panos Routsi said: "They killed him, that is what happened. They are murderers, all of them." Not long before the crash, his son told him: "Dad, I'm going to be late ... I will call."

"I'm still waiting for his phone call," Routsi said. Railway workers extended their strike to a second day on Friday, and more protest rallies were planned, as many demanded answers on how such a tragedy could have happened.

ALARM BELLS After evening protests over the past two days, some 2,000 students took to the streets in Athens on Friday, and more protests were planned later in the day.

"Their profits, our dead," read one banner, signed by a university student organisation. On another placard, one could read: "It was not an accident, it was murder." Carriages were thrown off the tracks, crushed and engulfed in flames when the two trains collided on the same track. There were more than 350 people on board the passenger train.

The 59-year-old Larissa station master was arrested and has admitted to some responsibility, his lawyer said, while stressing he was not the only one to blame. "The federation has been sounding alarm bells for so many years, but it has never been taken seriously," the main railworkers union said, demanding a meeting with the new transport minister, appointed after the crash with a mandate to ensure such a tragedy can never happen again.

The union said it wanted a clear timetable for the implementation of safety protocols. Work resumed at the crash site, where rescue staff used cranes to lift some of the carriages that were thrown off the tracks.

"The operation is under way, it was planned to end today, we hope it will end today but there's always the unknown factor," a fire brigade official said. Meanwhile, more than two days after the crash, opposition politicians also started to voice criticism.

"Any effort to hide and cover up the truth over the Tempi tragedy is disrespecting the dead and foretelling new tragedies," said Popi Tsapanidou, a spokeswoman for the leftwing Syriza, Greece's main opposition party. Before the crash, the government had said that elections would be held in the spring, with media citing April 9 as the most likely date. Political analysts say that plan might now be pushed back.

 

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