Many thousands of Greeks demonstrated on Sunday outside the Greek parliament in Athens after the train accident in which 57 people died on Tuesday. The protests turned violent when some protesters set trash cans on fire and threw petrol bombs at the police. The police responded with tear gas and stun grenades. Initially, the protesters were peaceful. They brought with them large quantities of black balloons, which they released into the sky. People mark a minute’s silence during a protest outside the Greek parliament in Athens. Photo: Aggelos Barai / AP There are also demonstrations in several other cities on Sunday after the train accident that happened outside Larissa, approximately 380 kilometers north of Athens. It was a passenger train and a freight train that collided head-on, and at least three carriages caught fire. On Sunday, 55 of the 57 victims have been identified, writes the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. The train collision was very powerful. Photo: Vaggelis Kousioras / AP The Prime Minister asks for forgiveness. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotaki called the train crash a “tragic human failure”. It has provoked the Greeks. They believe the reason is, among other things, lack of maintenance of the railway network. Already on Thursday there were protesters outside the headquarters of the Greek railway operator Hellenic Train in Athens. On Sunday, the Prime Minister asked for forgiveness. “Of course, I owe everyone, but above all to the relatives of the victims, a big apology, personally, as well as in the name of all those who ruled the country for years,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote on social media, according to Kathimerini. “In Greece in 2023, it is not possible for two trains to move in opposite directions on the same line and not be noticed by anyone. We cannot, do not want and must not hide behind human error,” the Prime Minister wrote further. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (second from left) and Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis (far left) visited the accident site on Wednesday. Photo: Dimtiris Papamitsos / AP Greece’s transport minister Kostas Karamanlis already asked on Wednesday to be allowed to leave after the violent train accident. In a statement, Karamanlis wrote that resigning was his duty and that it was the least he could do to honor the memory of the victims. He also wrote that he took responsibility for the state’s “long-term mistakes”.
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