Greek train crash toll set to rise, government promises answers

LARISSA, Greece, March 2: The death toll from Greece's deadliest train crash was set to rise even higher, with 46 confirmed dead but ten people still missing, authorities said on Thursday.

Anger grew across the country over how two trains could smash head-on on the same track and the government said it would do all it could to make sure such a crash never happens again.

Carriages were thrown off the tracks, with two entirely crushed and several engulfed in flames when a high-speed passenger train with more than 350 people on board and a freight train collided near the city of Larissa late on Tuesday.

"We are all devastated by this tragic incident," government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou told a news conference.

"The loss and trauma this caused, the physical and mental trauma of survivors, and the angst of this country is huge, and its difficult to manage, particularly now."

As many in Greece demanded answers, rescuers continued to comb through charred and buckled rail carriages to try and find more victims.

"The most difficult moment is this one, where instead of saving lives we have to recover bodies," 40-year old rescuer Konstantinos Imanimidis told Reuters on the site of the crash, about 140 miles (230 km) north of Athens.

"Temperatures of 1,200 degrees and more in the carriages cannot allow for anyone to remain alive."

Nearby, two brothers were crying, with 33-year-old Sokratis Bozos saying they had come to the site of the crash in the hope of getting some news of their father, after the hospital could not tell them whether his body had been recovered.

To identify some of the victims, relatives, including the Bozos brothers, had to give DNA samples at a hospital in Larissa, where disbelief turned to anger for some.

"Some bastard has to pay for this," one relative shouted, outside the hospital.

Many of the victims were university students returning home after a long holiday weekend. Scores were injured.