A common strike in Greece on Friday halted trains and ferries, grounded flights and disrupted public companies as hundreds of staff walked off the job on the second anniversary of Greece’s worst-ever practice catastrophe.
The 24-hour walkout, referred to as by Greece’s two most important labor unions, was the newest in a sequence of public protests over a dragging judicial investigation into the crash, through which 57 individuals have been killed.
There may be nonetheless lingering anger within the nation over the federal government’s failure to place any of its politicians below scrutiny over the lack of life.
Here’s what to know concerning the strike and the enduring anger over the accident.
What did the strike entail?
Rallies passed off in Athens and throughout Greece, with protesters calling for these at fault within the crash to be punished and for rail security to be improved.
The strike concerned public- and private-sector staff. A police official estimated that the Athens protest attracted at the very least 180,000 individuals, the biggest demonstration within the Greek capital in years.
All industrial flights to and from Greek airports have been grounded, and no ferries or trains have been working. Restricted public transportation was working in Athens to permit demonstrators to get to the rally.
Faculties and hospitals have been affected as lecturers and well being care staff joined the motion. Legal professionals and ambulance staff walked out, too, whereas many retailers closed. A number of widespread artists additionally canceled deliberate reveals.
On the rally in Athens, many expressed anger and frustration.
“We have to ship them a message,” mentioned Nikolas Κatsambanis, 19, a pupil of music manufacturing, referring to Greece’s politicians. “They lie via their tooth,” he mentioned, including that he now not travels by practice, having recognized one of many crash survivors. “My finest buddy’s sister was within the seventh automotive, and he or she’s nonetheless in shock.”
Niki Antypa, 68, mentioned that she used to take “good journeys” by practice however was now additionally scared to journey, even on public transit. “They don’t have any management of the railways,” she mentioned, accusing the authorities of scrambling to cover proof concerning the state of the rail community after the crash.
What occurred within the practice accident?
On the evening of Feb. 28, 2023, a passenger practice and a freight practice collided head-on close to Tempe, in central Greece, on a route linking Athens with the northern port of Thessaloniki. Lots of those that died within the crash have been younger college students getting back from a vacation weekend.
On the time, the Greek authorities blamed human error, saying {that a} routing mistake by a station grasp had put the passenger practice onto the identical observe as an oncoming freight practice. However additionally they admitted to shortfalls in Greece’s railway infrastructure and delays in putting in trendy security programs that might have averted the catastrophe.
The lethal episode set off days of protests as individuals demanded accountability and larger rail security.
Two years later, questions stay concerning the precise circumstances of the crash.
A report by an unbiased rail and air investigation authority arrange after the tragedy, whose outcomes have been made public on Thursday, discovered that delays in putting in digital signaling and distant surveillance programs performed a key position within the collision, as did power understaffing and underfunding ensuing from cutbacks enforced throughout Greece’s decade-long monetary disaster.
The report additionally criticized the Greek authorities for flawed mapping of the crash website, an element that it mentioned had resulted within the lack of “doubtlessly very important data.”
How have the authorities responded?
Greece has made some progress in enhancing railway security for the reason that crash. The infrastructure and transportation minister, Christos Staikouras, informed Greek tv on Thursday that trendy alerts and distant surveillance programs had been added alongside the complete Athens-to-Thessaloniki route after the accident.
However a cyclone then broken the programs, leaving them not absolutely useful on “a big half” of that route, Mr. Staikouras mentioned.
He mentioned the harm could be repaired by summer season 2026 and that Greece was engaged on an plan agreed upon with the European Fee to enhance coaching for railway staff.
The authorities have mentioned {that a} judicial investigation is continuous into who could also be answerable for the crash. The handfuls below investigation are largely railway officers.
How did the general public reply to the strike?
The demonstration in Athens began peacefully, with households pushing kids in strollers and retirees becoming a member of college students on the streets of the capital, holding banners calling for “justice” and “the responsible to pay.”
Selini Vazeou, 20, who’s finding out to be a instructor, mentioned she felt compelled to attend the rally although she feared that nothing would change. “I don’t imagine our voice will probably be heard,” she mentioned. “They all the time discover a method to cowl issues up and hold their jobs,” she mentioned of the federal government.
On the fringes of the protest, a bunch of elementary schoolchildren with their mother and father and lecturers held a banner that learn, “Justice now.” They chanted, “We’ll always remember the crime,” and “The brand new era will avenge you.”
Violence erupted within the early afternoon after just a few hundred hooded youths broke away from the principle protest and threw firebombs and chunks of paving stone at cops, who responded by firing tear fuel. The police arrested 41 individuals.
As a helicopter circled overhead, individuals ran via the streets to flee the acrid smoke whereas emergency staff carried a girl who was struggling to breathe out of the fray.
Protesters chanted “Murderers!” in relation to the Greek authorities, as elite presidential guards have been moved from their cubicles into the Parliament constructing, the place some members of the general public additionally took refuge.
Others cried, “I’ve no oxygen,” the final phrases one of many practice passengers uttered in a name to emergency companies that has gone viral on Greek social media in latest days.
Athina Vasiloglou, 20, a images pupil, mentioned the Tempe catastrophe encapsulated all that’s incorrect with the Greek state — “all of the failings, all of the dysfunction, wrapped up inside one tragic incident.”
Stelios Deligiannis, 23, a sound engineer, mentioned he used to journey on the Athens-Thessaloniki rail route to go to associates within the northern port metropolis.
He mentioned he had little hope of serious change — “the nation and the state don’t encourage us to be optimistic” — however believed that justice will ultimately prevail. “The reality can’t be hidden ceaselessly,” he mentioned.
