The Greek unions of the private and public sectors, Gsee and Adedy, have called a 24-hour general strike in the country for this Thursday, demanding that “the real culprits” be found for the train accident in Greece that on February 28 left 57 dead.
In a statement, Asedy said that officials demand “that the crime of Tempe,” a town near which the incident occurred, not be covered up.
They also demand “an end to privatization policies,” which they blame for the current state of deterioration of the railway.
“We demand that the causes of the accident be thoroughly investigated and those responsible found,” Gsee said in its statement.
Greece has been registering mass protests for almost two weeks due to the accident that occurred on the night of February 28, when a passenger train collided head-on with a freight train north of the city of Larisa causing 57 deaths, mostly young university students.
On Sunday, more than 15,000 people, according to police, protested in Athens against the conservative government, which demonstrators blame for the state of deterioration of the railway.
The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has assumed political responsibility for the accident and has acknowledged that in the section where it occurred there were no safety measures that could have prevented it.
So far, four officials of the state railway company OSE have been charged, including a station master who has admitted to the Prosecutor’s Office that he put the passenger train on the same track as a convoy of goods coming in the opposite direction.
The accident and the wave of public outrage that it has unleashed comes less than two months before the general elections, whose date has not yet been set, although, according to the Greek media, the most likely day for its celebration would be May 21.
