There was pandemonium on Friday as clashes broke out in Athens as hundreds of thousands of people rallied across Greece to demand justice on the second anniversary of the country’s deadliest-ever train crash.
Striking workers brought air, sea and rail transport to a halt.
It was gathered that 57 people were killed when a passenger train filled with students collided with a freight train on February 28, 2023, near the Tempi gorge in central Greece.
Two years later, the safety gaps that caused the crash are said to have not been filled.
A separate judicial investigation is said to have remained unfinished, and no one has been convicted in the accident, fuelling popular anger.
Protests were held in cities and towns across Greece in one of the biggest protests in the country in years.
In the capital, Athens, the demonstration turned violent when a group of hooded youths hurled petrol bombs at police and tried to storm the barricades in front of parliament.
Booms of tear gas volleys fired by riot police rang out across the centre.
Earlier on Friday, a sea of people poured into the central Syntagma Square in front of parliament, chanting murderers against what they say is the state’s role in the disaster.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ centre-right government, which won re-election after the crash in 2023, has faced repeated criticism by relatives of the victims for failing to initiate a parliamentary inquiry into political responsibility.
However, the government denied wrongdoing, stating that it was up to the judiciary to investigate the accident.
