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On Sunday, a rally in the Greek capital of Athens turned violent, with protesters expressing their rage by attacking police officers. On Tuesday, railway workers claimed that years of government underinvestment had led to the tragedy at a memorial event for victims of a deadly train crash.
Thousands of people gathered in front of the Greek Parliament shortly after midday, including students and left-wing activists who joined railway workers. Demonstrators released black balloons into the sky while chanting “this crime will not be forgotten!” and waving placards with slogans like “their policies cost human lives!” – an obvious reference to the Greek government’s cost-cutting exercises
On Tuesday night, a passenger train carrying more than 350 people collided head-on with a freight train on the same track near Tempe, near Greece’s eastern coast, killing at least 57 people and injuring scores more.
According to Reuters, the train from Athens to the northern city of Thessaloniki was packed with university students returning from a long holiday weekend.
Since Wednesday, railway workers have been staging rotating walkouts to protest a chronic lack of funding for rail infrastructure. Unions have described the current safety systems as inadequate.
While Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ government blamed the collision on human error, he admitted on Sunday that if a remote security system had been in place, “it would have been, in practice, impossible for the accident to happen.”