THESSALONIKI – CORRESPONDENCE. “Do you know something? Have you heard anything? Parents of the passengers of the fateful train IC62, following the route Athens – Thessaloniki, gathered early at the New Thessaloniki station. I don’t know how I managed to get out.” Another mother, who had not yet been able to contact her daughter, tried in vain to find information about her child’s whereabouts.

In total, five buses passed from the New Railway Station, which delivered passengers from the accident site to Thessaloniki. Most of them went down the steps of the bus in a state of shock and fell into the arms of their relatives, bursting into tears. “It was a few seconds that felt like a century,” says one of the first rescuers to arrive. “I thought I was going to die,” said a young man who was driving behind the front cars, which were engulfed in flames. As he described, he first felt a jolt and then saw the front cars “rush” towards him. Everything around him was abandoned, but he himself managed to get out of the van with a few hacks on it.

“I became like a mass under the coffee table. Then the people inside started screaming, the girls were crying. Luckily, the back door opened and we all got out,” said another rescued passenger. Some were less fortunate, and, as they said, they had to break the window of the car with a suitcase to get out, or they found a hole and managed to escape when the car “turned”. “We ended up tilting the van 45 degrees. The whole floor was covered in oil and some people were slipping trying to get out,” said another.

When they got out, they saw “chaos”, “people in a panic” and the front cars engulfed in flames.

Leaving the bus, the young woman fell into the arms of her mother, who had been waiting for her for several hours. She was helped, as she said, by a colleague to escape. Together with her, the lightly wounded with blood stains on their faces and clothes, who were sent to the ambulances that arrived at the scene, got off with them to help them.

Among the rescued there is a young woman who still cannot believe her happiness. As she noted, her place was usually in the second carriage. However, she decided at the last moment to switch to the 6th car and thus managed to escape.

Police arrived at the scene as a third bus pulled up and began recording the rescued. Prior to this, the relatives of the passengers waiting at the station had no official information. By about 4:00 am, five buses completed the transfer of about 200 rescued to Thessaloniki.

Anxiously, the expectant mother did not see her daughter in any of them. Together with several other relatives, she recently left with a communication phone in hand to contact the competent authorities of Larisa to establish the whereabouts of her child.