ATHENS, April 12, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A bomb exploded Friday outside the Athens offices of Hellenic Train, the company involved in Greece's worst rail disaster, which claimed 57 lives in 2023, police said.

The police said anonymous calls to Greek media warned of the attack near one of the capital's busiest highways.

There were no immediate reports of injuries in an area neighbouring hotels, restaurants and tourist rentals.

The Hellenic Train building also appeared undamaged.

Greek daily Efsyn and news website Zougla, both of which received a call, said the explosive device had apparently been hidden in a padlocked backpack, placed on a scooter without licence plates.

A police bomb disposal squad arrived too late to detonate the device before it exploded, they said.

A nearby hotel had earlier been evacuated, state TV ERT said.

The attack was similar to one carried out outside the Greek ministry of labour in February 2024.

Fifty-seven people, most of them young students, died in February 2023 when a passenger train and a freight train collided in Tempe, central Greece, after being allowed to run on the same track.

The accident has sparked sweeping strikes and hundreds of protests in Greece and abroad this year.

It also brought about two votes of no confidence last year and in March that the conservative government overcame.

The train's Italian-owned operator Hellenic Train has denied knowledge of any illegal cargo on the freight train.

Over 40 people have been prosecuted, including the local station master responsible for routing the trains.

A trial into the accident is not expected before the end of the year.

Earlier Friday, parliament voted to refer a former junior minister to justice on possible misdemeanour charges for breach of duty in connection to the aftermath of the accident.

Opposition parties say Christos Triantopoulos, who was dispatched by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the scene after the accident, authorised the bulldozing of the crash site which led to the loss of vital evidence.

Triantopoulos denies any wrongdoing and says he was overseeing relief efforts.

Greece's intercity trains went under private management in 2017, when state-owned Greek rail traffic services operator TrainOSE was privatised and sold to Italy's Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, becoming Hellenic Train.

Greek state company OSE still owns the tracks.

Hellenic Train's former CEO Maurizio Capotorto has reportedly been summoned to testify before a magistrate, on suspicion of giving false testimony to a parliamentary committee into the disaster in January 2024.