Rail traffic in Greece will gradually resume from March 22, three weeks after a serious train accident on February 28 that killed 57 people, Transport Minister Georges Herapetritis said on Tuesday, AFP reported.

Rail traffic, which was disrupted after a head-on collision between two trains in Tempe, 350 km from Athens, “will gradually resume from March 22,” Georges Herapetritis was quoted as saying in a press release.

He specified that the movement of “intercity (passenger) trains connecting the port of Piraeus near Athens with the international airport” of the capital Eleftherios Venizelos, freight trains connecting Triasio in the department of Attica with Thessaloniki, and regional trains from the north will be restored first. countries.

On March 27, local trains connecting cities in the southwestern Peloponnese will run again, and passenger trains between Athens and Thessaloniki will not start until April 1. In the middle of this line, near the city of Larissa, on February 28, a passenger and freight train collided, which became the largest accident in Greece in recent years.

The accident was mainly attributed to the “error” of the head of the station in Larisa, who was charged and remanded in custody. However, he identified “chronic pathologies due to omissions or indifference” by governments in recent years and sparked anger in the country against the conservative Greek government for failing to modernize rail safety.