Death toll in tragic Tempi rail accident reaches 46

The official death toll from a train collision in north-central Greece on late Tuesday night reached 46 by Thursday morning, fire brigade officials announced.

Search and rescue efforts continued overnight at the accident site, at the Evangelismos location at the southern entrance of the Tempi Valley gorge, north of the city of Larissa.

Meanwhile, the station master at the Larissa rail hub is expected to face a prosecutor in the same city on Thursday.

The 59-year-old man is an employee of the state-run railway system, OSE, and in preliminary statements to authorities on Wednesday reportedly admitted that he mistakenly switched the north-bound passenger train into the path of an ongoing south-bound freight train.

Nevertheless, intense media scrutiny in the country over the past two days has focused on why consecutive governments and state railways administrations in the country since, at least from the 2004 Olympics, haven’t installed an electronic – and subsequently digital – monitoring, signaling, communication and automated braking system along all tracks and trains.
Moreover, Greece’s rail network deemed as one of the smallest and antiquated in the European Union.
According to legal experts in the country, the station master’s remand is more-or-less assured, in the face of felony charges that are expected to be filed.