From Thessaloniki for Time
Greece is still shocked by the tragedy in Tempi in Thessaly, where on February 28, Tuesday evening, 57 people lost their lives in a head-on collision between high-speed and freight trains, which were traveling on the same track in opposite directions for about 10 minutes.
A total of 350 people, together with the crew, were on the fast train going from Athens to Thessaloniki. Most of the passengers were young people and students who spent the weekend and the last days of the carnival with the final "Clean Monday" at home with their families. There are 130 injured people in hospitals, six of whom are fighting for their lives in intensive care units.
In addition to the Greek citizens, two Greek students from Cyprus and five young Albanians, children of the second generation of Albanian immigrants, died in the accident, while two more Albanians are in intensive care, which is why Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama declared Sunday, March 5, a day of national mourning. .
Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned "out of respect for the victims", the Greek state promised to give 3.500 euros each for funeral expenses, and the company Hellenic Train, which has belonged to the Italian Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane since 2017, promised to pay the families of the victims pay compensation.
Greece declared three days of national mourning from March 1 to 3.
But, the anger and rage due to this serious accident and unjustly lost lives are huge, so that already a day after the accident, tens of thousands of Greeks took to the streets of Athens, Thessaloniki, Larisa and other cities to demonstrate against the Government's inability to provide basic safety in railway traffic to its citizens.
Spontaneous and despite the new laws that make them more difficult, the demonstrations suddenly broke out like a flame in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larisa and many other Greek cities, decorated with countless anti-regime slogans, at a time when the center-right government headed by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is preparing to call for elections.
Photo: APIt was the biggest demonstration in Greece since 2011, when the country was plunged into a debt crisis and strict austerity measures were imposed by creditors. Then the protesters turned against the Troika and those governments that brought the country to the brink of the abyss.
Now is the dominant word bes directed against the Mitsotakis government, which won the 2019 elections by promising security to citizens and the modernization of the country, which "will be the protagonist in the 4th industrial revolution".
Because it was not only the fatal mistake of the 59-year-old head of the station in Larissa that led to this unimaginable tragedy, but also the absence of safety valves, such as the railway remote control system, with the help of which the train collision could have been avoided.
And the Government was solely responsible for that, which delayed it by giving priority to other projects, thus favoring its friendly and business interests. That is why the central slogan on the protesters' banners was "Their profits, our dead".
Five days after the accident, Greek Prime Minister K. Mitsotakis admitted that the tragedy in Tempi was not only the result of human error.
Although he said in a TV address to the nation on Wednesday that "everything shows that the tragedy occurred, unfortunately, mainly due to fatal human error", on Sunday, March 5, he declared on his Twitter account that "in Greece in 2023, it is not possible for two trains move in opposite directions on the same track without anyone noticing," and he also stated that "if the remote control project had been completed, it would have been practically impossible for this accident to happen."
Finally, he added: "As prime minister, I owe everyone, but above all the relatives of the victims, a big apology." Both personally and all those who have been ruling this country for years".
Not even a few hours have passed since the Prime Minister's post with an "apology", in which he also spoke about "the youth who demonstrated quietly and peacefully, with candles in their hands", the same young people who are holding candles together with thousands of workers on Sunday. pensioners, children with balloons in their hands, families with babies came to the center of Athens to demonstrate to demand justice for the victims of the tragedy, the government sent strong police forces with smoke bombs.
Photo: AP
They even sprayed poisonous tear gas on Katerina, a student who traveled on the fatal train, survived the accident and participated in the demonstrations with a broken elbow!
There were serious incidents in Athens and Thessaloniki. The police threw chemicals and flash "hand grenades", and a group of people threw oysters, Molotov cocktails and other objects at the police forces. The old and eternal hatred between the protesters and the anti-regime political space on the one hand and the Greek state and the conservative government on the other has been rekindled.
In Athens, a large number of people gathered in the Propylaea, in order to head towards the Parliament, while a silent protest was also held at the Syntagma, in front of the Assembly, where citizens held candles and black balloons. Members of student associations, workers and various people from the anti-autarchic space participated in the Thessaloniki mobilization, who demanded that those responsible for the accident not be concealed. Demonstrators have invited people to a new Great Rally on Wednesday, March 8.
By all accounts, this tragic event was the trigger, the domino that fell and started an avalanche of citizens' discontent and protesters who will no longer be silent. Thus, Greece entered a turbulent pre-election period with the left wing of the opposition and an expanded party Syrisa Progressiveand Satime led by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who will try to reap the fruits of the people's anger in the pre-election period and thus take revenge on the right for the defeat in the 2019 elections.
Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com
