Train collision in Greece | Violent clashes between police and protesters in Athens

(Athens) Violent clashes broke out on Sunday between police officers and demonstrators opposite the Parliament in Athens during a protest rally after the train disaster in Greece that left 57 dead on Tuesday evening.

Protesters set fire to garbage cans and threw Molotov cocktails at the end of the morning and the police responded with tear gas and stun grenades in the center of the Greek capital, AFP journalists noted.

In a few minutes, Syntagma Square, the large esplanade facing Parliament, was then emptied of 12,000 demonstrators, according to a new count by the police, who had gathered a little earlier to hold the Greek authorities to account after this head-on collision between two trains running on the same track.

Early Sunday afternoon, calm had returned to the capital.

According to the Greek police, “seven police officers were injured and transported to a military hospital” in the capital. “Five people were arrested” after throwing marbles, stones and Molotov cocktails at the police, the statement also said.

This drama, which is upsetting the whole country, has also aroused immense anger at the negligence and shortcomings in the railways revealed with this accident.

The dilapidated state of the railway network, various problems in the signaling and safety system on the railways have been pointed out as the station manager of Larissa, the town closest to the accident, has admitted his responsibility .

“We feel immense rage,” Michalis Hasiotis, president of the union of accountants who joined the procession, told AFP. “The greed, the lack of measures taken for the protection of passengers has led to the worst railway tragedy in our country”.