Greek railway employees have prolonged their strike to a second day and extra protest rallies are deliberate amid anger over a devastating prepare crash that killed not less than 57, amongst them many college college students.
Carriages had been thrown off the tracks, crushed and engulfed in flames when a high-speed passenger prepare with greater than 350 folks on board collided head-on with a freight prepare late on Tuesday.
“The federation has been sounding alarm bells for therefore a few years, nevertheless it has by no means been taken severely,” the primary rail employees union stated, demanding a gathering with the brand new transport minister, appointed after the crash with a mandate to make sure such a tragedy can by no means occur once more.
The union stated it needed a transparent timetable for the implementation of security protocols.
Questions surrounding the crash, which occurred as the 2 trains had been on the identical observe, contain defective signaling and upkeep points.
Work resumed on the crash web site, the place rescue employees used cranes to elevate among the carriages that had been thrown off the tracks, which may very well be wrapped up on Friday.
“The operation is below manner, it was deliberate to finish in the present day, we hope it is going to finish in the present day however there’s all the time the unknown issue,” a fireplace brigade official stated.
It was unclear if extra had been nonetheless lacking, or what number of.
Amid shock and sorrow in a rustic the place three days of nationwide mourning have been declared, households and mates stated they needed solutions about how such a crash might have occurred.
On Thursday, outdoors the hospital in Larissa, the place lots of the victims had been introduced, a lady known as Katerina, whose brother was lacking, screamed: “Murderers! Murderers! I’ll depart tomorrow with a coffin!”
Katerina, whose anger was directed on the authorities and the rail firm, had, like different family in search of family members, given a DNA pattern to attempt to determine her brother.
A girl whose husband and five-year-old son had been on the prepare informed Greek TV: “All these people who find themselves there, they’re ineffective, ineffective. Some MPs are popping out and providing condolences, so what? Will it deliver our youngsters again?”
Requested if she gave DNA for identification, she stated, on footage broadcast by Mega TV: “To determine what, ashes?”
After night protests up to now two days, two extra rallies are deliberate in Athens on Friday.
-AAP
