A large crowd gathered at the church in Avgorou on Monday morning as the funeral was being held for one of the Cyprus victims of the fatal train crash in Greece last week.
The service for Kyprianos Papaioannou, aged 23, started at the church with crowds gathered outside, many wearing white as had been requested by the family.
Young people were also wearing tshirts with his image on and expressing their condolences.
The second victim, Anastasia Adamidou, aged 24, will be buried in Paphos at 2pm.
The expenses of both funerals will be met by the state.
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Both Papaioannou’s and Adamidou’s families have requested no media presence at the service and burial so pictures were restricted to the outside of the church.
Papaioannou’s father, a priest of Avgorou community, held an overnight liturgy on Sunday, ahead of the funeral service.
Meanwhile, an investigation is underway to determine the extent of the Larissa stationmaster’s culpability.
The 59-year-old, who cannot be named due to Greek investigation protocol, faces charges of manslaughter and negligence, as well as a felony charge of disrupting transport safety, which carry penalties of ten years up to lifetime imprisonment.
The accused is being held in custody and has so far undergone an initial seven-hour long interrogation ending shortly after 9:30pm on Sunday.
His defending lawyer, Stephanos Panzartsidis, is quoted as saying the stationmaster was devastated by the event.
Former Larissa stationmaster, Yiannis Kollatos, told Greek broadcaster Mega TV that accumulated mistakes led to the tragedy in Tembi on the evening of Tuesday, February 28.
“There were many mistakes…The final mistake was that the stationmaster did not turn the key and signalled for the train driver to cross the red light without specifying on which track the train should run,” Kollatos said.
He explained that operators both at Larissa and at Thessalonica stations, had visibility of the situation.
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