- Nick Beck in Larissa and Catherine Armstrong in London
- BBC News
Rescue workers search through the wreckage of a fatal train collision in Greece
Railway workers across Greece have begun a one-day strike, following a train collision that killed at least 43 people.
“The pain turned into anger for dozens of dead and wounded colleagues and citizens,” the trade union said in a statement.
The strike follows protests in Athens, Thessaloniki and the city of Larissa, near the site of the disaster.
Rescue workers are still working in burnt and mangled vehicles, searching for victims.
One of the rescue workers, Konstantinos Imanimidis, told Archyde.com that this was the “most difficult moment” because “instead of saving lives, we have to recover bodies.”
The accident occurred shortly before midnight on Tuesday. A passenger train with 350 people on board collided with a freight train following they both ended up on the same track, causing the front carriages to catch fire.
The strike of the railway workers began at 6:00 local time (4:00 GMT), affecting the services of the national railways and the metro in Athens.
Many in Greece see the collapse as an accident waiting to happen, and the union has blamed successive governments’ “lack of respect” for Greek railways for causing this “tragic outcome”.
A 59-year-old station manager in Larissa has been charged with negligent manslaughter and is due to appear in court on Thursday. The man denied any wrongdoing, blaming the accident on a technical error.
The country’s transport minister also resigned over the accident, saying he would take responsibility for the authorities’ “long-term failures” to reform a railway system unfit for the 21st century.
Meanwhile, the government promised an independent investigation and justice.
image copyright Archyde.com
A wrecked train car at the scene
But Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ claim that “tragic human error” was responsible for the disaster sparked outrage.
On Wednesday, demonstrators clashed with police outside the Athens headquarters of Hellenic Train, the company responsible for maintaining Greece’s railways.
Tear gas was used to disperse protesters who threw stones and set fires in the streets.
At a silent vigil in Larissa to commemorate the victims of the accident, one protester said he felt the disaster was coming for a long time.
“The railway network looked like a problem, with overworked and underpaid staff,” Nikos Sava, a medical student from Cyprus, told AFP.
He added that the arrested station manager should not pay the price for “a completely sick system”.
“This is an unacceptable incident. We have known this situation for 30 years,” resident doctor Kostas Pargiotas told AFP.
image copyright AFP
People lit candles and laid flowers outside the train station in Larisa on Wednesday
Many of the passengers on the train were students in their twenties, returning to Thessaloniki following a long weekend to celebrate the Greek Orthodox fast.
Fire brigade spokesman Vassilis Varthakogiannis said temperatures inside the first vehicle, which caught fire, reached 1,300 degrees Celsius, making it “difficult to identify the people inside”.
Families have given out DNA samples to help with identification efforts, with results expected Thursday.
Kostas Malesos, recently retired surgeon and emeritus professor at Greece’s University of Thessaly, is back at work performing surgery on injured passengers.
“We are now at the stage of trying to match the human parts found at the accident site with DNA,” he told the BBC.
image copyright Getty Images
Candles are lit outside the offices of the train company in Athens
Local media reported that more than 10 people were still missing, and three days of national mourning was declared.
But Professor Maleszos said it was difficult to know how many people were missing.
image copyright Getty Images
Protesters gather outside the offices of the train company in Athens
He also questioned how the prime minister might come to such a quick conclusion that human error was responsible, and said a large-scale independent investigation was necessary.
“It is a disaster.. Families are crying tonight. Unfortunately, the majority of the missing are young students. They left home, happy following the long weekend, to go to their studies or to see their relatives and never reached them.”
image copyright AFP
Protesters clashed with police outside the headquarters of the Hellenic train company in Athens