Greek Trains To Resume 'gradually' From March 22 After Crash: Govt

Rail traffic will resume "gradually" in Greece from March 22 as the country reels from its deadliest-ever train crash last month, a minister said on Tuesday

Athens, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Mar, 2023 ) :Rail traffic will resume "gradually" in Greece from March 22 as the country reels from its deadliest-ever train crash last month, a minister said on Tuesday.

Fifty-seven people, many of them students, were killed when a passenger train and freight train collided head-on in central Greece on February 28.

Rail traffic, halted after the incident at Tempe, 350 kilometres (220 miles) from Athens, "will gradually resume from March 22," minister George Gerapetritis said.

Four railway officials have been charged, but public anger has focused on long-running mismanagement of the network and the country has been rocked by a series of sometimes violent mass protests.

On Sunday about 12,000 demonstrators gathered outside parliament while 5,000 took to the streets of the second city Thessaloniki, police said.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is fighting to be re-elected within months, has faced calls from some protesters to quit.

He has come under fire for initially pointing to "human error" for the accident and blaming the stationmaster on duty at the time who allegedly routed the trains onto the same stretch of track by accident.

But railway unions had long been warning about problems on the creaking, understaffed train network.

The stationmaster is among the four railway officials who have been charged.

Greece's transport minister resigned after the crash, and Mitsotakis has sought to soothe public anger by repeatedly apologising and vowing a transparent probe.