Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis apologized Sunday for any responsibility Greece’s government may bear for the deadliest train crash in the country’s history
when a passenger train and a freight train collided late Tuesday north of Athens. The stationmaster is accused of mistakenly guiding the two trains traveling in opposite directions onto the same track, precipitating the head-on collision.
The prime minister promised a swift investigation of the collision and said the new Greek transportation minister would release a safety improvement plan. Once a new parliament is in place, a commission also will be named to investigate decades of mismanagement of the country’s railway system, Mitsotakis said.
A retired railway union leader, Panayotis Paraskevopoulos, told Greek newspaper Kathimerini that the signaling system in the area monitored by the Larissa stationmaster malfunctioned six years ago and was never repaired. Greek media have reported that the stationmaster, a former porter with the railway company, was transferred to a Ministry of Education desk job in 2011, when Greece’s creditors demanded reductions in the number of public employees. The 59-year-old was transferred back to the railway company in mid-2022 and started a 5-month course to train as a stationmaster.
Police at the scene responded with “limited use of the necessary, appropriate means” — that is, tear gas and stun grenades – and chased suspects along a central avenue in the city.
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