/ 10 December 2003

Four injured after Greek train derails

Twenty-seven people were injured, including four seriously, when the train they were on derailed on Wednesday in southern Greece, hospital sources said.

”A total 27 people were injured, four of them — all Greeks — seriously. But their lives are not in danger,” said Vassilis Dimopoulos, director of the Panarkadiko public hospital where the accident’s victims are treated.

Thirty-seven people were on the train when two of its coaches derailed near the town of Megalopolis under circumstances that are under investigation.

This is the second train to derail on the same stretch of track within 12 months. In December 2002, 28 people miraculously survived, only slightly injured, when their train derailed and tumbled for about 70m down a hill near Megalopolis on the Peloponnese peninsula, about 220km southwest of Athens. — Sapa-AFP