February Issue
Eleni Dimitropoulou
February
The calendar displayed the date Feb. 28, 2023, and the first news that reached the press offices around 23:40 referred to a “train derailment at Evangelismos in Larissa.”
Few people immediately realized what happened, but this changed as images from the local media were transmitted throughout the country: A passenger train operated by Hellenic Train Company collided head-on with a commercial train from the same company.
The passenger train IC62, scheduled to depart from Athens for Thessaloniki at 7:22 p.m., carrying approximately 350 passengers, started with a short delay. Many passengers were students returning to Thessaloniki after the three-day religious holiday— known as Clean or Green Monday. Train IC62 arrived in Larissa late due to an incident that preceded it at Palaeofarsalos station. It departed Larissa station at 23:00, incorrectly entering the descending line. Meanwhile, the freight train was going from Thessaloniki to Larissa on the same downward line.
The head-on collision between the two trains took place at 23:21 on Feb. 28, 2023, on the Athens-Thessaloniki line. The area where the accident happened, 27.3 kilometers to the north of Larissa, was a double-track section, but automatic controls had been damaged and out of service by a fire in 2019, so switching was still done manually. The passenger train was traveling at a speed of 160 km/h on the left track, where the freight train was also moving in the opposite direction. The collision derailed most of the passenger train's carriages, and at the moment of the collision, there was an instantaneous explosion, which consumed the two front carriages of the passenger train. According to the regional governor of Thessaly, Konstantinos Agorastos, carriages one and two of the passenger train were completely burned, while the Thessaly Emergency Medical Service reported that two to three carriages had been crushed as a result of the collision.
With the first light of day, in order to locate victims and any survivors, rescue crews began lifting the wreckage of the wagons that ended up in the field next to the railway line. According to a report given to the authorities, Hellenic Train, the company that owns the passenger train, initially estimated the number of passengers to be approximately 350. It also states in its report that, aside from the online tickets issued, there is no proper accounting of the number of passengers or even their names. According to official data, 57 people were killed in the accident, of whom 56 were identified from biological material, while in the case of one missing person, no sample was found. The identification of some victims was particularly difficult due to the high temperatures that developed during the fire, which reached 1,300 degrees Celsius inside the first carriage.
57 condemned souls—the majority of whom were students and young children—paid for the disastrous mistakes of the railway. 57 innocent souls died due to the long-term negligence of railway administrations. 57 defenseless souls paid with their lives due to the acquisition of the railway by the Italian private company, which allowed the trains to fall into disrepair. 57 wronged souls paid for the unmeritorious appointment of the ruling party's crony to a position of responsibility. 57 forsaken souls paid for the ostrichism of the responsible minister, who systematically turned a deaf ear to the union bodies of the Hellenic Railways Organisation or OSE that thundered about the dangers of the railway.
This tragic accident was the beginning of exposing the problematic railway network of the country, as well as the indifference of the State. The written warnings, mobilizations and legal actions of the railway workers, regarding the understaffing, the inadequate maintenance and the lack of electronic safety systems in the trains expressways, even a few days before the "black" February 28th, seemed to have fallen into the void. The employee representative on the board of directors of Hellenic Train complained that, on this particular route, the signaling and remote control systems were not working, which would have acted as safety valves to avoid the collision.
It was not only the OSE trade unionists who had warned of the many problems in the Greek railway, both with their latest letter on February 7 and with their previous announcements since the summer but also the European Commission, which had repeatedly reprimanded Greece for non-compliance with the European directive. Two weeks ago, in yet another resounding “bellwether” for our country, the Commission announced its decision to refer Greece to the European Court of Justice for “failing to fulfill its obligations under the Directive on the Single European Railway Area (2012/34/EU).” Based on this directive, “Member States had to ensure that a contractual agreement between the national competent authority and the railway infrastructure manager had been concluded by June 16, 2015, at the latest.”
More importantly, in contrast to the Greek government's negligence, European authorities are conducting a parallel investigation into the case. The European Public Prosecutor's Office's case file places 23 people under scrutiny for their responsibility in the scandalous Contract 717. This contract concerns the upgrading of the signaling-telecommand system on the Greek railway network, co-financed by the EU Cohesion Fund. The indictment issued by the European Public Prosecutor's Office against 14 ERGOSE executives who handled Contract 717 between 2016 and 2021 disputes the allegations of the former Minister of Transport and nullifies the conclusion of New Democracy in the Investigative Committee, as it definitively links the non-implementation of Contract 717 to the head-on collision of trains in Tempi.
The country entered a strike on February 28, the day on which it will be two years since the Tempi train tragedy. The demand for justice, in the shadow of the latest revelations and the grandiose rallies, is widespread. It has resulted in a strike uprising in recent days. ADEDY (Civil Servants' Confederation) issued an announcement for a nationwide strike, calling on federations, primary unions and workers to fight for the success of the mobilization.
On Friday, January 31, students and teachers took to the streets to protest the tragedy in Tempi in more than 196 cities in Greece. In the center of Athens, the crowd far exceeded five thousand, while the Greek Police made 27 arrests. In particular, the Athens Student Coordinating Committee called on middle and high school students from all over the country to participate en masse in Friday's rallies both in the Propylaea and in the central squares of major cities in the country. The announcement stated the following: “We continue! As long as you deprive us of oxygen, our struggle will give us breath for life. As long as you lie, we will fight for truth and justice. The crime in Tempi will not be covered up. Either with profits or with life.”
The surge of protest has been provoked not only by the two-year anniversary of this tragedy but also by the disclosure of new evidence. A photo taken just two minutes after the fatal collision of the passenger and commercial trains in Tempi was published. In the photo, the second wagon of Intercity 62 appears to have caught fire. Next to it, the train's transformer with the silicone oils remains unaffected by the flames. According to the experts who processed it, it is proof that the explosions were caused by undeclared cargo.
As a Greek citizen, I cannot help but be haunted by the thought that this could have been us—the idea that my family, my friends and even myself could have been the ones inside this train. We could have been in Thessaloniki turning the pages of our books, or standing as a family on that train heading to the student residence as our mother held our hands toward a new life. We could have been taking the train to get our graduation certificates, or hurrying home for the holidays with the warmth of home ahead. We could have been those children whose parents never received the message, or never even heard our voices when we didn't arrive that fateful night. Ever since then, every train that leaves the station bears with it a weight of terror, darkness, and silence…
Photo credits: John Perivolaris on Flickr