Greek rail workers strike over conditions after deadly crash

THESSALONIKI, Greece –

Rescuers utilizing cranes and heavy equipment on Thursday searched the wreckage of trains concerned in a lethal collision that despatched Greece into nationwide mourning and prompted strikes and protests over rail security.

The loss of life toll from Wednesday’s head-on crash involving a passenger practice and freight provider remained at 43 as crews proceed to test the burned-out and twisted rail automobile stays for extra our bodies. More than 50 individuals remained hospitalized, most within the central Greek metropolis of Larissa, some in severe situation.

Railway staff’ associations known as strikes, halting nationwide rail providers and the subway in Athens, to protest working circumstances and what they described as a scarcity of modernization of the Greek rail system.

Wednesday’s collision occurred close to the small city of Tempe in northern Greece, when a freight practice loaded with heavy development tools smashed right into a passenger service on Greece’s busiest line between Athens and the nation’s second-largest metropolis, Thessaloniki. More than 300 individuals had been on board the practice, a lot of them college students coming back from a vacation weekend and annual Carnival celebrations round Greece.

As Greece reeled from its deadliest-ever practice catastrophe, Pope Francis and European leaders despatched messages of sympathy. Among them had been the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose nation is recovering from devastating earthquakes final month. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy despatched a message in Greek, writing “The people of Ukraine share the pain of the families of the victims. We wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.”

A stationmaster arrested following the rail catastrophe is because of seem in court docket Thursday as a judicial inquiry tries to determine why the 2 trains travelling in reverse instructions had been on the identical monitor.

Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned following the crash, his substitute tasked with establishing an unbiased inquiry trying into the causes of the accident.

“Responsibility will be assigned,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis mentioned in a televised deal with late Wednesday after visiting the scene of the collision. “We will work so that the words `never again’ … will not remain an empty pledge. That I promise you.”

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Gatopoulos reported from Athens, Greece.