LARISSA, Greece, March 3 (Reuters) – Greek railway workers extended their strike for a second day on Friday, with more rallies planned, amid anger over the devastating train crash that killed at least 57 people , including many students.
The train with more than 350 passengers on board, which was en route to Thessaloniki, hit a freight train on Tuesday at the exit of a tunnel near the city of Larissa, in Thessaly.
Four carriages of the passenger train derailed. The first two caught fire and were almost completely destroyed by the violence of the impact, while another was thrown 90 degrees from the track.
“The federation has been sounding the alarm for so many years, but it has never been taken seriously,” said the main railway workers’ union, calling for a meeting with the new Minister of Transport, appointed after the accident. to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.
The union said it wanted a clear timeline for implementing safety protocols. Issues surrounding the crash – which happened while the two trains were on the same track – involve signaling and maintenance issues.
Work has resumed at the crash site, where rescue personnel used cranes to lift some carriages, thrown off the tracks, and could be cordoned off on Friday.
“The operation is ongoing, it was scheduled to end today, it is hoped it will end today but there may still be an unknown factor,” a fire official said.
It was unclear if there were other people missing, or how many.
Across the country, three days of national mourning have been declared and families and friends of the victims have said they want answers about how such an accident could have happened.
After the demonstrations of the past two days, two more rallies are planned in Athens on Friday, one around noon and one in the evening.
(Reporting Lefteris Papadimas, Alexandros Avramidis, Karolina Tagaris, Renee Maltezou; Writing by Ingrid Melander; French version Lina Golovnya, editing by Kate Entringer)
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