More Than 40,000 Protest Over Greek Train Tragedy

Athens, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Mar, 2023 ) :Tens of thousands of people protested across Greece on Thursday as workers staged a mass strike to voice outrage over last month's train disaster, which killed 57 people.

The February 28 tragedy exposed decades of safety failings in Greek railways and has put major pressure on the conservative government ahead of national elections.

Police said more than 40,000 protested nationwide on Thursday, including 25,000 people in Athens and around 8,500 in each of the country's next largest cities, Thessaloniki and Patras.

"This crime will not be forgotten," demonstrators from the country's communist union PAME chanted as the crowd marched on parliament in the capital.

Students shouted "murderers" and marchers threw flyers of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wearing a stationmaster's cap, captioned "it's everyone's fault but mine".

The rail disaster occurred shortly before midnight when a passenger train crashed head-on into a freight train in central Greece after both were mistakenly left running on the same track.

Most of the passengers were students returning from a holiday weekend.

Thursday's 24-hour strike is the biggest yet in days of industrial action that followed the disaster, this time called by Greece's leading private as well as public sector unions.

The walkout shut down the civil service, flights and ferries.

"Things have to change in this country, we simply cannot mourn all these deaths," said Athens' protester Stavroula Hatzitheodorou, in reference to deadly wildfires that have gripped Greece in recent years as well as the train crash.