From Türkiye's earthquakes to Greece's deadliest train crash. Some rescue workers have found themselves in two disaster zones in less than a month. The stress and anxiety levels remain high, but also anger and frustration as they search in vain for the missing.

A passenger service carrying 350 people collided with a freight train and burst into flames just before midnight on Tuesday after they ended up on the same track.‌ As the rescue efforts continue, there is still no sign of life. 

Every time a bulldozer or a crane moves a piece from the wreckage, there is fresh hope of recovering belongings from those missing, but so far only scrap metal and debris has been found.

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Konstantinos Imanimidis is the man leading the rescue mission. The sound of heavy machinery cleaning up rubble and debris has haunted him ever since he left the earthquake-affected areas in Türkiye.

"After two intense weeks of continuous rescue missions, we were called to do the same now, near Tempi," he tells CGTN. "We left a very stressful environment and as we were trying to recover from that, we ended up in another stressful environment. It's been very difficult, I hope my team will find time to recover."

So far more than 80 people have been treated in hospitals and over 50 remain missing. But as the days go by the number of those who have lost their lives continues to grow.

Konstaninos has been deployed to many disaster zones throughout his career, but the images he's seen in this one will remain with him forever.

"I don't think that the images we've seen will be erased from our memory, the conditions are very difficult, I personally won't be able to forget what I have seen," he says. "There isn't a single image that got stuck in my mind up until now, but everything here is just gruesome. My whole team shares the same feeling."

‌The rescue mission has now turned into a recovery mission, as they try to find anything that will provide information about the whereabouts of the missing.

The overriding emotion amongst families who are still searching for their loved ones is anger as they are kept waiting for news by the Greek authorities.

"‌Families are fed up – the company has the name of those missing, but is not releasing them," says Michalis Giannakos, the Head of the Public Hospital Workers Union.

"They can't hide it from them. Families need to know where their loved ones are, whether in a hospital or dead. Keeping them waiting is only making things worse."

The fire brigade announced that the recovery mission will come to an end by the weekend, but more time may be needed to complete the search and establish the full facts of the crash.

The site is being treated as a crime scene after the manager of Larissa station was charged with manslaughter, but that is of little comfort for grieving families and rescue workers who are all asking the same questions: Why did so many young people have to die? Why this way?

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