Greek PM Mitsotakis addresses country in wake of unprecedented rail disaster; independent com’t of experts to probe cause of crash

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis took to the national airwaves on Wednesday evening in the wake of a deadly train collision late Tuesday night in north-central Greece, with the official death toll reaching 38, promising to work towards never allowing such an accident to occur again in the country.

Mitsotakis, who faces a general election in the coming months with his ruling center-right New Democracy (ND) party, spoke hours after his Cabinet’s transport and infrastructure minister, Costas Karamanlis, tendered his resignation. The heads of the state-run company which owns, maintains and operates railway infrastructure in the country, Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), as well as the state-run railways infrastructure builder Ergose, also resigned in the wake of the worst railway accident in Greece.

“We will mourn our children, our siblings, our friends; we will stay united in this tragedy, too. Then, we will bow our heads and grit our teeth; we will work so that this ‘never again’, which I heard in Larissa, will not remain simply empty words,” he said.

The Greek premier said he’s instructed Karamanlis’ successor, Minister of State Giorgos Gerapetritis, to immediately establish an independent, non-partisan committee of experts that will fully investigate the causes of the collision, and “will also probe the perpetual delays in the implementation of railway projects.”

He also said Greece’s court and judicial system will fulfill its mission, with responsibilities to be assigned.

An initial investigation has pointed to human error as causing the deadly collision of two trains on the same track headed in the opposite direction. However, Greece’s rail network and rolling stock has been bedeviled for decades by neglect, under-funding and poor management.

The privatization of rail services in the country was achieved in 2018, with a sole successful bid by Italy’s FS Group accepted. The latter’s subsidiary, Hellenic Train, operated the passenger train involved in the collision.