ATHENS, 28 Feb: Wides-pread strikes in Greece halted trains, ferries and much of the capital\u2019s public transport on Wednesday in protests timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the country\u2019s deadliest rail crash, which killed 57 people.
\nThe train disaster on the night of Feb. 28, 2023 shocked the country. Many of the victims were university students heading back to class after a public holiday when their passenger train slammed into an oncoming cargo train after the two were accidentally put onto the same track heading in opposite directions.
\nWednesday\u2019s strike disrupted public transport in the capital, Athens, and left ferries tied up in ports as unions pressed demands to further dismantle wage controls imposed during Greece\u2019s near decade-long financial crisis. Flights were unaffected after a court ruled that participation in the walk-out by air traffic controllers was illegal. Farmers and university students have also been staging anti-government protests in recent weeks.
\nAt the scene of the rail crash in Tempi, central Greece, relatives of the victims gathered for a memorial service as churches across the country tolled their bells 57 times Wednesday morning to honor the dead.
\n\u201cThis is a pain that will never end, a wound that will never heal,\u201d said Panos Routsi, whose 22-year-old son, Denis, was killed.
\nHe said he supported a petition that has gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures to strip parliamentary immunity from lawmakers responsible for rail safety when the collision occurred.
\n\u201cWhat I want is for them all to be (punished), all those responsible wherever they are hiding, hiding behind immunity,\u201d he said.
\nFlowers and candles were placed at the rail crash site, along with a banner reading: \u201cUnpunished crime in Tempi, the souls demand justice.\u201d
\n\u201cI thought I was putting my children onto the safest form of transport and they were driven to their deaths,\u201d said Nikos Plakias, who lost his 19-year-old twin daughters and one niece in the crash. Those responsible \u201cknew the problems and they said nothing.\u201d
\nIn the capital, protesters gathered outside Parliament chanting \u201cmurderers, murderers,\u201d while thousands of demonstrators, some holding up flares and red helium-filled balloons, gathered outside the headquarters of the country\u2019s rail operator. Some spray-painted the slogan \u201cOur Lives\u201d in front of a riot police cordon backed with a water cannon truck.
\nThe rallies halted traffic in much of the capital. Scuffles broke out between police and protesters in the capital and in similar protests in Thessaloniki, the country\u2019s second-largest city, where riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades to repel demonstr-ators throwing paint, stones and Molotov cocktails.
\nProtest organizers dispu-ted government assurances that rail safety had been comprehensively overhauled in the past 12 months.
\nIn a statement marking the anniversary of the disaster, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said an ongoing judicial investigation into the crash has the government\u2019s full support and cooperation.
\n\u201cOn this sad anniversary we bow our heads in memory of the 57 innocent people we lost and the ordeal of those wounded,\u201d he said. \u201cOur thoughts are with families, who have every right to turn their pain into protest.\u201d (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATHENS, 28 Feb: Wides-pread strikes in Greece halted trains, ferries and much of the capital\u2019s public transport on Wednesday in protests timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the country\u2019s deadliest rail crash, which killed 57 people. The train disaster on the night of Feb. 28, 2023 shocked the country. Many of the victims […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-235827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}