Massive strikes and rallies throughout Greece: thousands of people are due to show their anger once more on Wednesday, a week following the train disaster which left 57 dead and raised a wave of indignation.
Greece should be almost at a standstill with a call to stop work in a large part of the public and private sectors.
No maritime connection will be provided between the mainland and the islands and the trains will remain in the station for the eighth day in a row.
Public service employees are also called upon to strike for 24 hours, as are primary school teachers, doctors and bus and metro drivers.
Demonstrations are once more expected across the country, including two in the capital.
In Athens and Thessaloniki, the country’s second city, violent clashes broke out on Sunday between police and demonstrators on the sidelines of a rally of 12,000 people.
In the processions that have been marching for a week, a slogan has spread: “Call me when you arrive”, in reference to the message sent by a mother to her child killed in this accident.
Many victims were young people and students. In recent days, the images of collapsed parents burying their child, often broadcast live by television channels, have helped to upset the country a little more.
– “National tragedy” –
The indignation does not weaken a week following the collision between a train connecting Athens to Thessaloniki with nearly 350 passengers on board and a convoy of goods.
Without any alert being triggered, the two trains traveled for several kilometers on the same track before colliding head-on on February 28 around 11:30 p.m. (21:30 GMT), in Tempé, near the town of Larissa, 350 km north. north of the capital.
Since what the authorities have described as a “national tragedy”, the Greeks are holding their leaders to account, at the forefront of which is the conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Because the day following the collision, serious shortcomings in the security system as well as the dilapidation of the rail network, property of the State, were pointed out.
The head of government, who faces general elections in the spring, is crushed to have a few hours following the disaster assured that it was “a tragic human error”.
However, the railway unions in particular recalled with anger that they had sounded the alarm on the serious technical failures on this line long before the tragedy, without having been heard.
The Larissa station master, who admitted responsibility for the accident, was remanded in custody.
But some accuse the authorities of wanting to blame a man who had very little experience.
“It’s easy to blame the station master,” protested Mariana Chronopoulou, a primary school teacher, during the Sunday demonstration.
– Planing blows on public services –
“We are very angry with this government because we also see the state in which the public sector is left,” she said.
Contrite, the Prime Minister asked forgiveness on Sunday from the families of the victims, a mea culpa considered very late for many.
He also asked for help from the European Union, which is to send experts from the European Agency for Railways (ERA) to Athens this week.
The anger is also directed at the railway company Hellenic Train.
To cries of “assassins”, demonstrators expressed their anger on Friday in front of the headquarters of the company and inscribed this word on the building in Athens.
The operator Hellenic Train, in charge of passenger and freight traffic, responded to the accusations by recalling that the responsibility for the maintenance of the network fell to the Greek public company OSE.
Many Greeks are also expressing their bitterness at what they see as a decline in public services since the austerity plans imposed by Greece’s creditors to pull the country out of the doldrums.
Public health, education, many sectors have suffered blows.
