Train disaster: violent clashes between police and protesters in Athens

UPDATE DAY

Violent clashes between police and demonstrators opposite the Parliament in Athens on Sunday during a protest rally after the train disaster in Greece that killed 57 people on Tuesday evening, AFP noted . 

Protesters set fire to trash cans and threw Molotov cocktails and police responded with tear gas and stun grenades in the center of the Greek capital, have noted AFP journalists.

In a few minutes, Syntagma Square, the large esplanade facing Parliament, was emptied of 12,000 demonstrators, according to a new police count, who had gathered a little earlier to hold the Greek authorities to account after this head-on collision between two trains traveling on the same track.

This drama, which is upsetting the whole country, has also aroused immense anger at the negligence and shortcomings in the railroads revealed with this ac cident.

The dilapidated state of the railway network, various problems in the signaling and safety system on the railways were pointed out while the station manager of Larissa, the nearest town of the accident, admitted his responsibility.

“We feel immense rage,” Michalis Hasiotis, president of the union of accountants who joined the procession, told AFP. 

“The greed, the lack of measures taken for the protection of passengers has led to the worst railway tragedy in our country”.