The World Briefly
March 03, 2023Culpability
Greece
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Rail workers launched strikes across Greece this week, the latest display of anger and condemnation against Greek authorities following a train crash on Tuesday that killed at least 57 people, the BBC reported.
The walkouts come after protests occurred in a number of cities, including the capital Athens. and Larissa, which is near the site of the train disaster.
On Tuesday night, a passenger train carrying 350 people – most of them students in their 20s – collided with a freight train after both ended up on the same track. The front carriages burst into flames. Rescue workers said they are still searching for victims.
The incident sparked a series of demonstrations across the country, with many protesters lamenting that the disaster had been long in coming. The worker’s unions blamed successive governments’ “disrespect” towards Greek railways for leading to this “tragic result.”
Greek authorities have charged Larissa’s station master with manslaughter, while the government has vowed to carry out an independent investigation into the incident.
The outcry also prompted Greece’s transport minister to resign, saying he would take responsibility for the authorities’ “long-standing failures” to fix a railway system not fit for the 21st century.
According to a 2022 study from the European Union Agency for Railways, Greece has a poor record of railway passenger safety compared with other countries in Europe, recording the highest railway fatality rate per million train kilometers from 2018 to 2020 among the 28 nations reviewed, CNN noted.
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