Anger erupts in Greece two days after the train tragedy that killed at least 57 people.

"Assassins", "Murderers", could be read, Thursday, March 2, on the panels posted by the demonstrators in Thessaloniki, reports the correspondent of France 24 Alexia Kefalas.

Protests have multiplied in the country, despite the mea culpa of the government which recognized "chronic" failures in the railways, after the frontal collision between the two trains. 

Some 2,000 people gathered on Thursday evening in Thessaloniki.

The demonstration resulted in stones and Molotov cocktails being thrown but "calm has now returned", said a police spokesman.

"In Thessaloniki and other cities in Greece, the majority of the protesters are students, because most of the victims of this head-on collision between the two trains were students returning to the University of Thessaloniki, the second largest city in the country where there are the most academic institutions". 

>> In pictures: "The worst train accident in history in Greece"

Residents of Larissa, near the Tempe Valley, where the disaster occurred, also demonstrated, carrying banners that read: "Privatization kills".

In Athens, after a first stormy rally the day before, hundreds of people protested outside the headquarters of Hellenic Train, the company of the damaged train.

This company was bought in 2017 by the Italian public group Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane (FS) as part of the privatization program demanded by Greece's creditors during the economic crisis (2009-2018).

Greek train strike

At the same time, the trains did not run on Thursday after a call for a strike by the Confederation bringing together railway unions to denounce "the lack of respect shown by governments over time towards the Greek railways, which led" to this disaster.

The movement was renewed for the day on Friday.

New events are also planned.

“Unfortunately, our constant demands for more permanent staff, better training but above all the adoption of modern security technologies have all been definitively thrown in the trash,” these organizations lamented.

The president of the OSE train drivers' union, Kostas Genidounias, highlighted the lack of safety on the line where the collision occurred.

"All [the signaling] is done manually. It's been since the year 2000 that the systems have not worked," he got carried away.

The union representatives of the railway company Hellenic Train had, in this regard, sounded the alarm bell three weeks ago.

“We are not going to wait for the accident to happen to see those responsible shed crocodile tears,” they warned. 

The apologies of the new Minister of Transport

"The delays [taken in the modernization of the railways] have their origin in the chronic pathologies of the Greek public sector, in decades of weakness", admitted, Thursday, the spokesman of the government, Yannis Oikonomou.

The new Minister of Transport, Giorgos Gerapetritis, for his part apologized to the families of the victims, while making "a complete self-criticism of the political system and the State".

The former minister, Kostas Karamanlis, had resigned the day before.

>> To see: After the rail tragedy, Greece in search of answers

“Until 2010, there was some modernization of the signaling of the railway network but, during the financial crisis, the safety systems began to break down,” recalled Panagiotis Terezakis, an adviser to the railways administration. of Greek iron.

"Upgrading of systems resumed at the time of privatization," the official added. 

As for the 59-year-old station master, prosecuted for "negligent homicide" and for causing "bodily harm", he risks life in prison if his guilt is established.

The government spokesman assured that "the error" had "been admitted by the station master himself" and his lawyer confirmed that he "recognized what he had done".

Under the violence of the shock which occurred shortly before midnight, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the locomotives and the leading cars were pulverized and the drivers of the two trains killed on the spot.

With AFP

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