The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, apologized this Sunday to the families of the victims of the disaster between two trains that this Tuesday killed 57 people and caused a great riot in the population of Greece.
“As prime minister, I owe forgiveness to everyone, but especially to the families of the victims,” Mitsotakis declared in a message addressed to the Greeks, posted on the Facebook social network.
“In Greece in 2023, it is not possible for two trains to go in opposite directions on the same track and not be noticed by anyone,” he said.
“We cannot, we do not want to and we must not hide behind human error,” attributed to the Larissa station manager, the conservative prime minister insisted.
Mitsokanis will attend a religious service in the Orthodox cathedral of Athens. All the churches in the country plan today to pay tribute to the victims of the accident, which occurred on Tuesday and which also left dozens of injured, described by the authorities as “a national tragedy.”
Also this Sunday in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in the country and where many of the victims lived, ‘Molotov cocktails’ were thrown again at a squad of riot police, the Greek news agency ANA reported.
The stationmaster of Larissa, the closest city to the site of the accident between a train linking Athens and Thessaloniki in the north, and a freight train, claimed responsibility for the disaster.
Presented by the media as inexperienced and with little time in office, the 59-year-old man must be heard by the Greek justice and could be charged with involuntary manslaughter.
However, the state of degradation of the railway network, problems in the signaling system and safety on the railways were pointed out as existing problems.
Union representatives had been alerting in recent weeks about the various deficiencies in the network and the lack of employees.
The Greeks plan to demonstrate their discontent once again today, at noon, in front of the parliament, in the center of Athens.
In Athens and Thessaloniki, in recent days, these protests have led to clashes between the police and the demonstrators.
On Friday, protesters protested and chanted calling for the killers in front of the Hellenic Train railway company’s headquarters in Athens, writing the word in red letters on the building’s facade.
Source: TSF
