Approximately 300,000 people gathered in downtown Athens on Friday to mark the second anniversary of the train disaster that killed 57 people, according to Greek police. Protesters threw Molotov cocktails onto the parliament grounds and set a sentry box on fire.

Following hours of peaceful rallies in the Greek capital to mark two years since the Tempe rail disaster, youths with hammers smashed paving stones, throwing the rubble and makeshift firebombs at police, who responded with tear gas.

Protesters hurled petrol bombs and set fire to trash cans in Athens on Friday as hundreds of thousands of Greeks went on strike and took to the streets in nationwide demonstrations on the second anniversary of the country's deadliest train crash.

Greek mass protests and a general strike Friday marking the second anniversary of a deadly train disaster morphed into violent Athens clashes between police and hundreds hooded, black-clad young protesters.

Scores of youths hurled rocks and gasoline bombs at police in front of Greece's parliament building in Athens on Friday during mass protests to mark the second anniversary of a devastating train crash in northern Greece.