TENS of thousands marched across Greece today to protest against the deaths of 57 people in the country’s worst train disaster, which exposed the impact of privatisation and significant rail safety issues.

Strikes halted ferries to the islands and public transport services in Athens, where at least 50,000 people took part in the protest.

More than 20,000 joined rallies in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, where clashes broke out when several dozen youths challenged a police cordon. 

Communist-aligned trade union organisation PAME Greece International hailed the turnout as “the most massive strike of the last 50 years.”

Twelve students from the city’s university were among the dead in last week’s head-on collision between a passenger train and a freight carrier on February 28 near the northern town of Tempe.

Police fired tear gas in the southern city of Patras, where a municipal band earlier played music from a funeral march while leading the demonstration. 

In the central city of Larissa, near the scene of the train collision, students holding black balloons chanted: “No to profits over our lives!”

Civil engineer Niki Siouta told reporters at the Athens protest: “I am here to pay tribute to the dead but also to express my anger and my frustration.

“This government must go.”

A stationmaster accused of placing the trains on the same track has been charged with negligent homicide and other offences, and the country’s transport minister and senior railway officials resigned the day after the crash.

But critics say they have been warning about serious safety concerns since the privatisation of the network in 2013.

Today’s protests were also backed by striking civil servants’ associations.

The underground ran for a few hours in Athens to allow people to get to the demonstration. The strikes also closed state-run primary schools and had public hospitals operating at reduced capacity.