Reuters. Protesters scuffled with police in Athens on Wednesday (March 1) after staging a demonstration outside the offices of the train operator Hellenic Train.
Police fired tear gas at rock throwing protesters who lit fires in the streets. Earlier a candlelit vigil was held outside the offices.
A Greek passenger train collided head-on with a cargo train late on Tuesday near the northern city of Larissa, throwing entire carriages off the tracks and killing at least 36 people, many of them students, in the country's deadliest rail crash in living memory.
Officials said the death toll was expected to rise further as temperatures in one carriage rose to 1,300 Celsius after it was engulfed in flames.
Parts of Greece's rail services were privatized in 2017 under a multi-billion euro bailout package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Hellenic Train, a unit of Italy's Ferrovie dello Stato which acquired passenger and freight operations, said it was working with authorities on the investigation.
The local station master, in charge of signaling, has been arrested and charged with causing mass deaths through negligence and causing grievous bodily harm through negligence, a police official said. The 59-year-old man has denied any responsibility for the accident, attributing it to a possible technical failure, the official said.
The two trains had been running towards each other on the same track "for many kilometers" before the crash, government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou said. Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis submitted his resignation, saying he was taking responsibility for the state's "long-standing failures" to fix a railway system he said was not fit for the 21st century.
The passenger train was carrying 342 travelers and 10 crew, while two crew were on the cargo train, according to Hellenic Train data. Sixty-six of those injured were hospitalized, six of whom in intensive care, a fire brigade official said.
The cargo train had been traveling from Thessaloniki to Larissa. Local media said the train left Athens around 7.30 pm (0530 GMT). The fire brigade said it was informed of the accident shortly before midnight.
