The confirmed death toll from the deadly Tempi train disaster had climbed to 46 on Thursday morning, a fire brigade spokesperson said, while 57 people injured in the crash remained in hospital, six of them in ICUs.
Meanwhile, the Hellenic Train station master in Larissa, who has admitted that the accident was caused by his own handling errors, is to appear before an examining magistrate on Thursday facing serious charges. Greece remains in a three-day period of national mourning declared by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis from March 1-3 as work to retrieve and identify the bodies continues.
An inspection of the crash site is to be carried out on Thursday by the Larissa Traffic Police, which is in charge of conducting the investigation into the accident.
The rescue workers searching for missing passengers are continuing to focus their efforts on the third carriage and are now attempting to cut it up so that its weight can be more evenly distributed so it can be moved. Teams are also looking through the charred remnants of the first two carriages with the assistance of cranes, which are utterly destroyed and also caught fire, working with great care due to the highly dangerous conditions.
They said all pieces of the train will be checked and rechecked to ensure that nothing is missed. The identification of the bodies retrieved so far is expected to be completed through DNA testing by Thursday afternoon, at which point they will be handed over to relatives.
According to doctors, there are comparatively few patients with life-threatening injuries from the crash and several of the less serious cases are expected to be discharged from Thessaloniki hospital on Thursday. Several areas in Greece have organised blood drives to help collect blood for the injured.
The deadly head-on collision of a passenger and freight train, which ended up on the same track moving in opposite directions at high speed, occurred late on Tuesday night.
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
