(ANSA) - ATHENS, 04 MAR - The station master involved in
Greece's worst-ever train disaster was due to appear in court on
Saturday after mass protests broke out over the crash that
killed at least 57 people. Thousands of protesters have
demonstrated across the country since Tuesday's collision
between a passenger train and a freight train, with public anger
mounting over government failure to manage the rail network.
The 59-year-old station master at Larissa, central Greece,
has admitted responsibility for the accident, which saw the two
trains run along the same track for several kilometres. The
train was carrying many students returning from a holiday
weekend and at least nine young people studying at
Thessaloniki's Aristotle University were among the dead, while
another 26 others were injured. Prime Minister Kyriakos
Mitsotakis, who is seeking re-election this spring, has blamed
the disaster on "tragic human error".
But protests blaming government mismanagement continued on
Friday in the capital Athens and several major cities across
Greece, with more planned for the weekend. "What happened was
not an accident, it was a crime," said Sophia Hatzopoulou, 23, a
philosophy student in Thessaloniki who was visibly angry. "We
can't watch all this happen and remain indifferent." She added
that she and her classmates "knew people who were killed or
wounded". "It's as if a part of us were lost." The station
master is due to appear in court on Saturday on charges of
negligent homicide. He faces life imprisonment if found guilty,
but his lawyer has argued that other factors were at play. "My
client has assumed his share of responsibility," lawyer Stefanos
Pantzartzidis said Thursday. "But we must not focus on a tree
when there is a forest behind it." The country's public
broadcaster ERT reported that the station master had been
appointed to the post only 40 days earlier -- and after just
three months' training.
- Desperately awaiting news -
Thousands gathered outside the Athens headquarters of operators
Hellenic Train to protest at decades of failure to improve rail
network safety, despite close calls in past years. "Murderers!"
the crowd cried out, with some protesters daubing the word on
the building's glass facade in red. Hundreds of people observed
a minute of silence outside the Greek parliament in tribute to
the victims of the disaster. Later Friday, riot police and a
small group of protesters clashed in central Athens, on the
sidelines of a candle-lit vigil for the victims of the crash. At
the rally in Syntagma Square, adjacent to parliament, officers
fired tear gas and stun grenades at protesters throwing stones
and Molotov cocktails, an AFP reporter said. Around 3,000 people
turned out for the demonstration. A similar number demonstrated
in Thessaloniki -- Greece's second largest city -- where police
had reported clashes on Thursday with demonstrators throwing
stones and petrol bombs. Demonstrations also took place in other
Greek cities Friday: about 700 turned out in Larissa, the town
closest to the site of the disaster, while 500 demonstrated in
the university town of Patros in the southwest Peloponnese,
according to police. A fresh demonstration is set to take place
in Syntagma Square at 11 am (0900 GMT) on Sunday. Survivors of
the crash described scenes of horror and chaos. Some relatives
were still desperately awaiting news of missing loved ones.
Roubini Leontari, the chief coroner at Larissa's general
hospital, told ERT on Thursday that more than 10 people were
still unaccounted for, including two Cypriots.
Greece's train services were paralysed on Thursday by
striking workers arguing that successive administrations'
mismanagement of the network had contributed to the fatal
collision. That strike continued into Friday and is set to
continue for another 48 hours more.
- 'Complete evaluation' -
Rail unions say safety problems on the Athens-Thessaloniki
railway line had been known for years. Legal sources suggested
that investigators were considering criminal charges against
members of the management of Hellenic Train. Police seized audio
files and other items during a raid on the Larissa train station
in central Greece, where the crash happened, a judicial source
told AFP. For decades, Greece's 2,552-kilometre (1,585-mile)
rail network has been plagued by mismanagement, poor maintenance
and obsolete equipment. After the country's transport minister
resigned on Wednesday in the wake of the crash, his replacement,
Giorgos Gerapetritis, vowed a "complete evaluation of the
political system and the state". Safety systems on the line are
still not fully automated. bur-jj/gw/mca/dhc
/ (ANSA).
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Greek station master due in court +++RPT
As anger boils over rail disaster