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The fatal collapse of a railway station roof prompted widespread anger against a government accused of selling off land to foreign companies.

On November 1 in Novi Sad, Serbia, the roof canopy of a railway station, hastily built only weeks before with Chinese and state money, collapsed. Fifteen people were killed.

Two weeks later another building came down 60 miles away when the Hotel Yugoslavia, a symbol of Belgrade in its heyday, was bulldozed to make way for a Ritz-Carlton.

Although residents of the Serbian capital were angered by the destruction of their landmark hotel on the Danube — the latest evidence, many felt, of a foreign luxury property investment ruining the old city’s character — the train station tragedy had stirred the entire nation’s fury.

Thousands of young people took to the streets to protest against corruption. They have been turning out daily across the country ever since, leading to the biggest political crisis for the ruling SNS party. Rescue workers at a collapsed train station in Serbia.

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Universities have been shut for three months, and workers and farmers are striking in support. More than 100 cities and towns are involved and polls by the media-monitor CRTA show as much as 72 per cent of the country backs the protests. Some analysts say they are now the largest student-led demonstrations in Europe since 1968.

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The protests have already claimed some scalps. Early in January, they led to the resignation of Milos Vucevic, the prime minister. A few weeks later more than a dozen people were charged over the train station disaster, including Goran Vesic, the former transport minister.

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But the protesters do not trust [president Vucic.

Helena Ivanov, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society think tank in Belgrade, said: “This is all too little, too late. People who should have been arrested years ago only just got caught. Vucic is trying to calm the public and make sacrifices to save himself. Changes are cosmetic — a damage-control effort.”

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The government has for years used property as a tool to curry favour with foreign regimes, said Ivanov, adding: “Vucic has long awarded lucrative contracts to foreign firms to gain their governments’ support for his rule.”

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Vucic tells western leaders that “Putinists” are trying to stir up trouble to forge closer ties with Russia. At the same time, he tells leaders in Russia and Belarus that western NGOs are paying students to spark a Maidan-style “colour revolution”, a reference to the 2013 Ukrainian movement that ousted the Russia-backed president Viktor Yanukovych.

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The demonstrations are changing Serbia’s image as a Russian ally in the Balkans. The students organise themselves in a form of direct democracy, making daily decisions and votes without fixed leaders. Their demands are in line with EU values.

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By default, they are choosing a western path. But many are frustrated with the West, feeling that EU and US leaders endorse Vucic’s “stabilocracy” instead of supporting the thousands who fight for democracy. After Trump announced that USAid funded “criminal organisations”, Serbian police raided key democracy watchdogs and media monitors that had received money from the agency.

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Though many Serbs still have emotional ties to their old ally Russia, few would seek inspiration from Putin’s brand of dictatorship. A Belgrade taxi driver, supporting his protesting son, said: “We are not like the Russians who endure and suffer their governments for ever. In Serbia, we have a tipping point, then we act. That point is now.”

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