Scheduled for Saturday, March 4, the hearing of the station master implicated in having committed a fatal error, which led to the train disaster which killed 57 people this week in Greece, has been postponed for twenty-four hours, said his lawyer, Stefanos Pantzartsidis, to Agence France-Presse.
The investigating judge in Larissa, the city closest to the scene of the accident, will have to decide after this hearing whether to charge the 59-year-old man with “negligent manslaughter”, who admitted his responsibility in Tuesday night’s drama.
The man, whose identity has not been revealed, had only received forty days of training to become a station master. But according to a judicial source, the investigation also aims “to initiate criminal proceedings, if necessary, against members of the management of the company” Hellenic Train, the Greek railways.
According to the daily Kathimerini, justice seeks to understand how an inexperienced station master found himself, alone, without anyone to supervise him, at Larissa station for four days when rail traffic on this line was intense due to this long weekend linked to an Orthodox holiday.
A search was also carried out on Friday at Larissa station. The government has also decided to instruct a committee of experts to investigate the causes of the accident to understand why a train carrying 342 passengers and ten railway workers was authorized to use the same single track linking Athens to Thessaloniki (north). than a convoy of goods.
Daily demonstrations
While the anger that has rumbled since this disaster does not come down, hundreds of demonstrators gathered calmly in Athens and Thessaloniki at the end of the day on Saturday at the call of the Communist youth. Since the day after the disaster, Greeks have taken to the streets to show their anger, accusing the authorities of negligence and pointing the finger at the dilapidated state of the railway infrastructure.
A large gathering of students, railway and public sector workers is scheduled for late Sunday morning in Syntagma Square, opposite Parliament. At Tempé station, near the scene of the tragedy, the families of the victims have also planned to gather on Sunday.
The burials of victims also began in an immense emotion. This tragedy shook all of Greece, in particular because many of the victims were young students returning from a long weekend in Thessaloniki, the large university town in the north.
The outbursts of anger also led to clashes in Athens and Thessaloniki. On Friday evening, the police used tear gas and sound grenades in these two cities. The anger is primarily directed at Hellenic Train. The word “Assassins” was painted in red letters on the glass of the headquarters in Athens in front of which more than 5,000 angry people gathered on Friday demanding accountability.
A warning from the unions three weeks ago
The company is implicated for numerous negligence and shortcomings that led to this disaster described as a “national tragedy” by the authorities. She defended herself on Saturday evening, stressing that she “was present from the first moment on the scene” and set up “a call center (…) to provide information”. The company also assured that it only manages passenger and freight transport, while the Greek public railway company (OSE) is responsible for the network, and therefore for its maintenance and modernization.
The president of the OSE train drivers’ union, Kostas Genidounias, highlighted the safety breaches on the offending line. Union representatives of the Hellenic Train railway company had sounded the alarm three weeks ago. “We are not going to wait for the accident to happen to see those responsible shed crocodile tears,” they warned.
Young Greeks are demanding the truth despite the government’s mea culpa on the “chronic” failures of the rail network that led to the accident.
“We are filled with rage and cannot accept that such a tragic event could happen in 2023,” said student union president Angelos Thomopoulos, who said most universities remained closed on Friday.
The trains did not run on Thursday and Friday after a call for a strike by the railway unions. The call was renewed Friday for forty-eight more hours. The Athens metro also planned to strike again on Sunday after a first strike on Thursday.
