Workers at Athens’s only landfill yesterday pleaded with authorities to step in and remove some 300 people from the area after it was revealed that a 17-year-old pregnant woman was run over and killed by a rubbish truck at the Ano Liosia dump on Friday.

A growing number of scavengers have recently been flocking to the site in search of salvageable trash that they can then resell.

The head of the workers’ union, Giorgos Chardas, called on authorities to remove some 300 migrants and Gypsies who are living in and around the dump.

The 17-year-old was a Romanian national and was seven months pregnant.

Chardas said that this was not the first accident at the dump involving a scavenger and warned that it would not be the last unless action was taken.