Greece train crash: 57 confirmed fatalities as public outrage rises

(bbc) ⸻ The most important details in this text are that DNA had been taken from 57 intact bodies, and that a 59-year-old station master in Larissa has been charged with manslaughter by negligence and is due to appear in court on Thursday. The railway workers' strike began at 0600 local time (0400 GMT), affecting national rail services and the subway in Athens, and the union blamed successive governments' "disrespect" towards Greek railways for leading to this "tragic result". The country's transport minister has resigned over the incident, saying he would take responsibility for the authorities' "long-standing failures" to fix a railway system that was not fit for the 21st Century. The government has promised an independent investigation, but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis's suggestion that "tragic human error" was to blame has caused anger. Tear gas was used to disperse protesters, who threw stones and lit fires in the streets of Larissa to commemorate the victims of the incident. Many of the passengers on board were students returning to Thessaloniki after a long weekend celebrating Greek Orthodox Lent. Fire brigade spokesperson Vassilis Varthakogiannis said temperatures inside the first carriage had reached 1,300C (2,370F), making it "hard to identify the people who were inside". Families have given DNA samples to help identification efforts, with the results expected on Thursday. Kostas Malizos, a recently retired surgeon and Emeritus Professor at Greece's University of Thessaly, has returned to work to perform surgery on injured passengers. Local media have reported that more than 10 people are still missing, as Greece observes three days of national mourning. Professor Malizos has questioned how the prime minister could have reached such a quick a conclusion that human error was to blame and said an extensive independent investigation was essential.