Violent clashes broke out between police and protesters opposite the Parliament in Athens on Sunday during a protest rally following the train crash in Greece that killed 57 people on Tuesday night, AFP noted.
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Demonstrators set fire to garbage cans and threw Molotov cocktails, and police responded with tear gas and stun grenades in the center of the Greek capital, AFP journalists noted.
In minutes, Syntagma Square, the large esplanade opposite Parliament, was emptied of 12,000 protesters, according to a new count by police who had gathered shortly before to hold Greek authorities head-on to account after that collision between two trains that travel on the same track.
This drama, which is shaking the whole country, has also generated immense anger at the negligence and shortcomings of the railways revealed with this accident.
The ailing condition of the railway network, various problems in the signaling and safety systems of the railways were exposed when the station manager of Larissa, the town closest to the accident, admitted responsibility.
“We feel immense anger,” Michalis Hasiotis, president of the Accountants’ Union, who joined the procession, told AFP.
“Greed, the lack of measures to protect passengers has led to the worst railway tragedy in our country”.