36 killed in Greece train crash

Dozens hurt after passenger, cargo trains collide head-on; station master arrested; transport minister resigns

A Greek passenger train collided head-on with a cargo train late on Tuesday, throwing entire carriages off the tracks and killing at least 36 people in the country's deadliest rail crash in living memory.

Dozens were injured in the crash and the fire that followed. Officials said the death toll was expected to rise further as temperatures in one carriage rose to 1,300 Celsius after it was engulfed in flames.

A station master was arrested as investigators tried to understand why the two trains had been on the same track. Greek Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis submitted his resignation.

Karamanlis said in a statement that resigning was his duty and "the least he could do to honour the memory of the victims", adding that he was undertaking the responsibility for the state's "long-standing failures."

The collision occurred as the passenger train, heading to the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki from the capital Athens, emerged from a tunnel near the central town of Larissa.

"There was panic ... the fire was immediate, as we were turning over we were being burned, fire was right and left," said Stergios Minenis, a 28-year-old passenger who jumped to safety from the wreckage.

A passenger who escaped from the fifth carriage told Skai TV: "Windows were being smashed and people were screaming ... One of the windows caved in from the impact of iron from the other train."

Rescuers scoured through the smouldering mangled mass of steel in the morning, and cranes lifted derailed passenger carriages, their windows blown out. One carriage stood on its side at almost 90 degrees from the rest of the wrecked train, with others tilting precariously.

Fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Varthakogiannis said temperatures in the first carriage had reached 1,300 Celsius, making it hard to identify those trapped inside.

"The confirmed number of dead is 36 but based on these facts, and the findings from the scene of the tragedy, the number is expected to be greater."

Flags flew at half-mast in Athens, as well as in Brussels, in a tribute to the victims of the crash, as the government declared three days of national mourning.

Many of the victims were thought to be university students on their way back from a long holiday weekend.

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