ATHENS (Reuters) -Two trains collided in central Greece late on Tuesday and rescue teams were evacuating passengers after at least two carriages caught fire, the fire brigade said.
State broadcaster ERT said “tens of people” were injured after a passenger train collided with a cargo train.
The fire brigade could neither confirm the number of injured nor the cause of the accident. The fire had been put out, the fire brigade said.
It said “some passengers” were pulled from the wreckage unconscious after the crash outside the city of Larissa close to midnight.
Broadcaster SKAI showed footage of derailed carriages, badly damaged with broken windows and thick plumes of smoke, as well as debris strewn across the road. Rescue workers were seen carrying torches in carriages looking for trapped passengers.
“There was panic in the carriage, people were screaming,” a young man who was evacuated to a nearby bridge told SKAI TV.
“It was like an earthquake,” Angelos Tsiamouras, another passenger, told ERT.
Konstantinos Agorastor, governor of the broader Thessaly region, told SKAI TV the two trains collided head on – a passenger train travelling from Athens to the northern city of Thessaloniki, and a cargo train from Thessaloniki to Larissa.
“The collision was very strong,” he said, adding that the first four carriages had derailed, while the first two were “almost completely destroyed.”
Agorastos said 40 passengers were taken to hospital with injuries, while about 250 were evacuated to Thessaloniki on buses.
(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris; Editing by Grant McCool and Stephen Coates)
