‘We are boiling with rage. It’s unacceptable for such a tragic event to happen in the year 2023’
Thousands of Greeks protested on Friday demanding justice for at least 57 people who died in the country’s worst rail disaster, which authorities acknowledged was a result of failures in state management of the network.
Meanwhile, some families were still desperate to find loved ones who were on the train and a few demonstrations turned violent as public anger increased over the role that government mismanagement played in the tragedy.
Audio files were among the items seized during a police raid on the Larissa train station in central Greece, where Tuesday’s crash happened, a judicial source told AFP. The passenger train – carrying many students returning from a holiday weekend – ran for several miles on the same track as an incoming freight train before the crash, reportedly after the station master in Larissa failed to reroute one of the trains.
The disaster has sparked widespread criticism of government failures in the rail network, and protestors held another series of demonstrations on Friday in the capital of Athens and several major cities across Greece.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis blamed the crash on “tragic human error,” despite protestors pointing the finger at government mismanagement.
“We are boiling with rage. It’s unacceptable for such a tragic event to happen in the year 2023,” said protester Angelos Thomopoulos. “We are taking to the streets today… to demand that those responsible for this tragedy are held accountable and that nothing is covered up.”
Greece’s train services were also paralyzed by striking workers arguing that successive administrations’ mismanagement of the network had contributed to the fatal collision.
