Greece train crash funerals begin as 57 victims identified

‘They killed him, that is what happened. They are murderers, all of them’

Protests outside the headquarters of Hellenic Train in Athens on Friday after the crash that killed 57 people (AP)

The first funeral for the nearly 60 victims of Greece’s worst rail disaster has been held as families began receiving remains after a harrowing identification process.

Athina Katsara, a 34-year-old mother of an infant boy, was buried in her home town of Katerini, northern Greece. Her injured husband was in hospital and unable to attend.

Recovery teams spent a third day scouring the wreckage in Tempe, 235 miles north of Athens, where a passenger train slammed into a freight carrier near Larissa just before midnight on Tuesday.

After evening protests over the past two days, some 2,000 students took to the streets in Athens on Friday, blocking the road in front of parliament for a moment of silence.

“Their profits, our dead,” read one banner.

In school yards in Athens, students used their bags to write the words “Call me when you get there,” a phrase that has become one of the protest slogans.

A banner repeats the message sent by the mother of a train crash victim; it translates as ‘message me when you arrive’ or ‘call me when you get there’ (AFP via Getty Images)

Railway workers extended their strike to a second day on Friday, and more rallies were planned, as many demanded how such a tragedy could have happened.

Larissa’s 59-year-old station master was arrested and has admitted to some responsibility, his lawyer said, while stressing he was not the only one to blame.

“The federation has been sounding alarm bells for so many years, but it has never been taken seriously,” the main rail workers union said, demanding a meeting with the new transport minister, appointed after the crash with a mandate to ensure such a tragedy can never happen again.

Almost 40 survivors remain in hospital, seven of them in intensive care. Anger has grown across the country over the crash, which the government has attributed to human error but which unions say was inevitable due to lack of maintenance and faulty signalling.

"They killed him, that is what happened. They are murderers, all of them," Panos Routsi said as he and his wife waited with anguish for confirmation of what had happened to their 22-year-old son Denis.

Pallbearers carry the coffin of Athina Katsara, 34, one of the 57 victims of the Greek train crash (AP)

Not long before the crash, his son had told him he would be late and would call. "I’m still waiting," Routsi said, standing opposite the hospital in Larissa, not far from the site of the crash, where many of the victims were brought.

Denis had travelled to Athens to see friends and was returning home in the train that never reached its destination. His mother, Mirela, showed reporters a picture on her mobile of her son beaming.

Before the crash, the government had said national elections would be held in the spring but political analysts say that plan might now be pushed back.

Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.