On February 28, 2023, a freight train crashed into an ongoing passenger service train carrying 350 people in Greece. According to BBC News, it was confirmed that 57 people died because of this unnecessary accident. Some of the carriages on the train burst into flames and caused more damage. The government minister said “austerity during Greece’s economic crisis in the 2000s had contributed to a lack of investment in the railways. Rail workers held a one-day strike on Thursday following the disaster, blaming government neglect.” BBC News

interviewed pensioner Stavros Nantis in Athens, and he said, “we are angry at the company, at the government, and past governments that did nothing to improve conditions in the Greek railway.” BBC News made a statement saying, “many in Greece see the crash as an accident that had been waiting to happen, and the union blamed successive governments’ “disrespect” towards Greek railways for leading to this “tragic result”. Zoe Rapti, a minister in health in Athens, said “a wide investigation would take place, which she promised would provide answers.” BBC News also interviewed Kostas Malizos who is a “retired surgeon and Emeritus Professor at Greece’s University of Thessaly, has returned to work to perform surgery on injured passengers. “It’s a disaster, it’s catastrophic,” he said. “Families are crying tonight. Unfortunately, the majority of the lost people are young students. They left home, happy after the long weekend, to go for their studies or to see their relatives and never reached them.”