THOUSANDS of people protested today against safety deficiencies in Greece’s railway network nearly two weeks after dozens were killed in the country’s deadliest train crash.

The protesters also demanded punishment for those responsible for the head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight train that killed 57 people on February 28. 

Police said that more than 8,000 people in Athens gathered outside Parliament to protest today.

The protesters later marched to the offices of privatised train operator Hellenic Train. 

The company, which has been owned by Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane since 2017, is not responsible for the maintenance of the railway network. 

The responsibility for the upkeep of the network rests with state-owned Hellenic Railways Organisation.

The rally was organised by civil servants, a pro-communist union and university students.

A protester in Athens, Markella, said: “It was anger and rage that brought me here.”

In Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki, about 5,000 people demonstrated, listened to speeches and shouted slogans, such as “We will be the voice for all the dead.”

A memorial service was conducted for 12 students of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University, Greece’s largest, who were killed in the train crash.

A stationmaster has been charged with negligent homicide and other offences by authorities and the country’s transport minister and senior railway officials resigned the day after the crash.

But railway unions have warned for years about safety problems on the understaffed and underfunded train network.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has pledged the government’s full co-operation with a judicial inquiry into the crash.

But grassroots workers organisation Pame Greece International tweeted a warning that “the people of Greece will not accept a cover-up.”

Amid the anger caused by the crash, the country’s general election looks set to be delayed from April with speculation that it could be postponed until May.