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Anastasia Balezdrova

A Bulgarian is one of the victims of the chain-reaction crash near Veria. The man died on the spot and later his body was transported to the hospital initially in Veria and then in Thessaloniki for an autopsy to be performed.

Three of the injured are also Bulgarian citizens. "A 28-year-old woman was taken to the surgical ward and the other two were admitted to the orthopaedic ward of the hospital where their health has been defined as stable", the hospital director in Veria, Anastasia Bourtsou, told GRReporter.

The people concerned are a 40-year-old man and 46-year-old woman with different family names. According to the head of the surgical department, Charalambos Demerdzis, the 28-year-old woman is in a serious condition.

In a video from the local news website, verianet.gr, companions of the deceased man told journalist Dimitris Karolidis how they survived the crash. They said they had been travelling to Bulgaria from Italy where they worked. All passengers come from the region of Pazardzhik.

The driver of the second Bulgarian van said: "There was a traffic jam and we stopped. The TIR appeared and ran into cars, trucks ...  It hit us, hit the white van. Killed the man; mowed the van down. He was not trying to stop. He was driving at a speed of at least 100 km/h".

Meanwhile, the police in Veria arrested the 39-year-old driver of the TIR truck against whom charges of manslaughter have been brought. In his testimony given in the police station he said he had been driving without brakes for about 23 km and all his attempts to stop the movement of the truck were fruitless. According to him, the dashboard of the truck showed a message about a problem as far back as the toll booths near Polimilos. He tried to stop the truck reducing the speed and applied the brakes continuously as a result of which they became blocked. When he reached the Thessaloniki road junction at Veria he could do nothing to avoid hitting other vehicles, so he smashed into the cars that had stopped right there. That specific section of the highway has a slope of over 10 degrees, and the truck was loaded with 19 tons of grapes. Today, the driver will testify before the prosecutor in Veria.

The arrested representative of the company - contractor of technical work, for which the traffic on Egnatia highway was diverted only into one lane, is also expected to appear before the judicial authorities. The charges against him are related to violations of the law on road traffic.

The authorities are investigating to what extent the security measures taken were sufficient to conduct the technical works without causing traffic problems on the highway. According to the permit issued by the Emergency Road Service in Veria, the laying of three medium voltage wires at the expense of the electricity company DEDDIE was expected to continue for 10 minutes only - between 9:30 and 9:40 on Sunday morning. The document also states that the company - contractor had to erect the "road signs and other warning signs" to warn drivers in time about passing cars.

The order was not subsequently observed - at 10:20 the road was still closed, and the only indication of this were two people waving flags - one at the beginning and one at the end of the blocked area.

To be continued.