Protests have erupted in Greece over the rail crash which killed 43 people, with many seeing it as an accident that had been waiting to happen.Rioters clashed with police outside the headquarters of Hellenic Train in Athens – the company responsible for maintaining Greece’s railways.Protests were also held in Thessaloniki and the city of Larissa, near where the disaster happened on Tuesday night.The government has said an independent investigation will deliver justice.Three days of national mourning have been declared across the country following the incident, in which a passenger service crashed head on into a freight train, causing the front carriages to burst into flames.
The front carriages of the passenger train were mostly destroyed.Many of the 350 passengers on board were students in their 20s returning to Thessaloniki after a long weekend celebrating Greek Orthodox Lent.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said “tragic human error” was to blame for the disaster.A 59-year-old station master in Larissa has been charged with manslaughter by negligence. He has denied any wrongdoing, blaming the crash on a technical fault.Rail union members believe safety systems were not working properly, with repeated warnings about this over many years.In protest and mourning, rail workers are planning on striking on Thursday at what they say is official neglect of the railways.
“Pain has turned into anger for the dozens of dead and wounded colleagues and fellow citizens,” the workers’ union said in a statement announcing the strike.”The disrespect shown over the years by governments to the Greek railways led to the tragic result,” it added in comments cited by Reuters news agency.Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned over the disaster, saying he would take responsibility for the authorities’ “long-standing failures” to fix a railway system he said was not fit for the 21st Century.But outside a hospital where bodies of the train crash’s victims were being brought, a banner was hung claiming that any systemic failings would be covered up in the official investigation now under way.
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