The death toll from a capsized fishing boat carrying migrants off the coast of southern Greece has risen to 79, the Greek coast guard has announced.
A large-scale search and rescue operation was underway on Wednesday morning after the boat, which is believed to have been transporting up to 400 people from near the Libyan port of Tobruk to Italy, capsized during the night in strong winds some 75 kilometers (46 miles) southwest of Greece's southern Peloponnese region.
So far, 104 people have been confirmed rescued and taken to the Greek town of Kalamata. They received dry clothes and medical attention in shelters set up by ambulance services and the United Nations Refugee Agency.
CTV News on Youtube shows that a head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train flattened carriages, killed at least 36 people and injured some 85, Greek officials said Wednesday, with the death toll expected to rise.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but the stationmaster in the nearby city of Larissa was arrested Wednesday. The police did not release his name.
Another two people have been detained for questioning. Paul Workman has the latest update.
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Death toll keeps rising in Greece's deadliest train crash
TEMPE, GREECE - Rescuers searched for survivors Wednesday in the mangled, burned-out wreckage of two trains that slammed into each other in northern Greece, killing at least 43 people and crumpling carriages into twisted steel knots in the country's worst-ever rail crash.
The impact just before midnight Tuesday threw some passengers into ceilings and out the windows.
"My head hit the roof of the carriage with the jolt," Stefanos Gogakos, who was in a rear car, told state broadcaster ERT. He said windows shattered, showering riders with glass.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called the collision of the passenger train and a freight train "a horrific rail accident without precedent in our country," and pledged a full, independent investigation.
He said it appears the crash was "mainly due to a tragic human error."
The train from Athens to Thessaloniki was carrying 350 passengers, many of them students returning from raucous Carnival celebrations. While the track is double, both trains were travelling in opposite directions on the same line near the Vale of Tempe, a river valley about 380 kilometers north of Athens.
STATIONMASTER ARRESTED; MINISTER RESIGNS
Authorities arrested the stationmaster at the train's last stop, in the city of Larissa. They did not release the man's name or the reason for the arrest, but the stationmaster is responsible for rail traffic on that stretch of the tracks.
Transportation Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned, saying he was stepping down "as a basic indication of respect for the memory of the people who died so unfairly."
Karamanlis said he had made "every effort" to improve a railway system that had been "in a state that doesn't befit the 21st century."
But, he added, "When something this tragic happens it's impossible to continue as if nothing has happened."
Greece Coronavirus Covid-19 death toll has reached 168. Greece has total confirmed virus cases of 2,853.
Greece is planning to reopen to tourists on June 15. Decreasing the Coronavirus Covid-19 restrictions would likely benefit the economy. Only tourists from countries with acceptably low rates of virus infection would be permitted to enter Greece. Greece is planning most flights to the country to be resumed by July 1.
Tourism is actually nearly 20% of the gross domestic product of Greece.
The following information is according to the COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
Total Global Confirmed Cases: 5,101,400
Countries with most confirmed cases:
1,576,886 USA
317,554 Russia
310,087 Brazil
252,246 United Kingdom
233,037 Spain
228,006 Italy
181,951 France
179,021 Germany
153,548 Turkey
129,341 Iran
118,226 India
108,769 Peru
84,063 China
82,742 Canada
65,077 Saudi Arabia
59,567 Mexico
57,581 Chile
56,235 Belgium
48,091 Pakistan
44,900 Netherlands
38,651 Qatar
35,306 Ecuador
33,371 Belarus
32,172 Sweden
