THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A train derailed Wednesday while carrying passengers including 116 people rescued after being stranded for 17 hours in freezing temperatures on board another train.

No injuries were reported when the first three train cars derailed about two miles outside Thessaloniki, authorities said. The total number of people on board was not immediately clear. The train was traveling from the city of Alexandroupolis, near the Turkish border, to Thessaloniki.

The passengers included those who had spent Monday night on board another train stuck in 7 feet of snow near the northern village of Petrades, about 563 miles north of Athens and close to the border with Bulgaria. Those passengers had been taken to Alexandroupolis.

That train had lost power, cutting the heating supply to the passengers, which included seven children, as temperatures plunged to 14 Fahrenheit.

They were evacuated on Tuesday afternoon by soldiers after rescue helicopters were hampered by bad weather and one other train engine sent to assist also became stuck.

Many of the people aboard were soldiers headed home for the Christmas holidays.

The passengers were to be transferred onto a third train in order to complete their journeys to Thessaloniki and Athens, authorities said.

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