Protests nationwide mark Greece's worst train disaster

TENS of thousands of people across Greece demonstrated at the weekend in solidarity with victims of the country’s worst train tragedy, which claimed 57 lives in 2023 and rattled the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

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More than a hundred gatherings were held in Greece and abroad to demand justice for the victims, most of whom were young students returning from a three-day carnival weekend.

“We are here because, three years after the Tempe disaster, we still don’t know exactly what happened, justice has not yet been served and those responsible are still walking free,” Lydia Pagkali, a 28-year-old said.

“Even today we don't feel safe taking the train or the metro,” she added.

At the close of the mostly peaceful protest, riot police fired tear gas and stun grenades at small groups of youths throwing stones and bottles at them. Nearly a dozen people were arrested.

The crash on February 28, 2023 took place when a passenger locomotive carrying some 350 people from Athens to Thessaloniki hit a freight train in the dead of night, in the Vale of Tempe in central Greece.