Fury, strike and protests after the train disaster in Greece: already 42 dead

As the death toll from the Greek train crash continues to climb and now reaches 42, railway employee unions announced a 24-hour strike on Thursday over the deteriorating industry and to criticize that the only detainee is a employee of the state railway company.

The death toll from the collision between two trains on Tuesday night north of Larissa in central Greece rises to 42, while Search parties continue to search for the bodies on the remains of the railways.

The firefighters are concentrating their duties on the third car of the passenger train, where on Wednesday several lifeless bodies were recovered.

Meanwhile, the workers of the railways and metro of Athens called a 24-hour strike on Thursday denouncing “the chronic lack of respect shown by the various governments” towards the railway sector, which, according to their complaints, “led to the tragic result “. Tuesday.

Indignation

Public discontent, however, is also reflected in a protest that took place on Wednesday evening in front of the offices of Hellenic Train in Athens, the company that manages the railways in Greece.

hundreds of protesters They accused the government of privatizing of society in 2017, while there were also clashes when a group threw petrol bombs at the police, who responded with tear gas.

The accident occurred just before midnight on Tuesday in Greece, when two trains – one with 342 passengers and 10 trainmen and another loaded with two drivers – collided near the small town of Tempe, about 300 kilometers from Athens.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis described the collision between the passenger and freight train as “a terrible train accident unprecedented in our country” and promised a full and independent investigation.

Mitsotakis noted that it appeared that the crash was mostly due to tragic human error, without elaborating.

At least 57 people are still hospitalized, six of them in intensive care. Many of the victims were young university students returning to Thessaloniki after a long weekend.

According to the Greek newspaper kathimeriniall people in the ICU are between the ages of 21 and 26.

Andreas Alikaniotis, a 20-year-old student who survived the crash, escaped from a wrecked carriage as the flames approached, smashing windows and dumping luggage outside to use as a makeshift landing mat.

“It was a sudden fall, into a ditch,” Alikaniotis, with a knee injury, told reporters from her hospital bed in Larissa.

“The lights went out. And the light came from the approaching fire and flying sparks. The smoke inside the wagon was suffocating, but the same thing happened outside,” he added.

“I managed to keep calm and was one of the few in the vicinity who didn’t suffer serious injuries, she said. My friends and I helped people,” said the young woman.

Statement before the prosecution

This Thursday, the head of the Larisa station, a 59-year-old man who, according to local media reports, will appear before the prosecutor’s office admitted I made a mistake when he placed the passenger train on the same track as the freight train traveling in the opposite direction.

The Greek railways, Hellenic Train, are operated by the Italian state company Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane.

The passenger train covered the Athens-Thessaloniki section, while the commercial train, probably carrying sheet metal, covered the Thessaloniki-Athens section.

Source: EFE and AP