On 28 February 2023 two Italian-operated trains, one passenger and one freight were involved in a horrific head-on collision near Tempi, in central Greece. Fifty seven people – most of them young -perished, not only in the crash but in a mysterious fire, captured in full by motorway cameras several kilometres away. Two years on, the flames are scorching the Greek government and have reached Hellenic Train, the subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato that runs Greece’s railways.
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“So many lies, so much evidence destroyed, so many questions unanswered, so many requests for evidence ignored.”
Maria Karystianou, mother of a victim
A general strike has been called for the second anniversary of the crash, on Friday, when massive protests are expected in more than 300 locations in Greece and around the world. More than the crash itself (two trains colliding head-on, on the main Athens-Thessaloniki line, unthinkable in any other European country) what is fueling the protests are the accusations of a cover-up. Relatives of the victims fear that the government and Ferrovie dello Stato are working hand in hand in order to conceal the real cause of the fire.
Two years of cover-up by the Greek government
Polls show that more than 70% of the people believe there is a cover-up and this includes government supporters. “So many lies, so much evidence destroyed, so many questions unanswered, so many requests for evidence ignored” Maria Karystianou, a paediatrician from Thessaloniki, whose 20-year-old daughter Marthi was burned to death as she returned home from carnival, tells Reporters United and Il Fatto. “For two years those who are responsible have been trying to silence our struggle”. Karystianou has become an iconic figure of this struggle.
Immediately after the crash, instead of cordoning off the site, the Greek authorities ordered a complete clean up of the area. The debris was removed, even the soil was dug up and trucked away without any search for human remains and passengers’ belongings. This was against all established rules for dealing with accident scenes, even those with far fewer victims, but in line with what would have happened if the aim had been to destroy evidence of the flammable material.
Christos Triantopoulos, deputy minister to the prime minister at the time, coordinated the operation. On March 5th, the Greek parliament will decide whether he will face a parliamentary inquiry. Officials, including the head of the regional government have been charged with tampering with the accident scene.
At the time, Greece had no specialised body investigating railway accidents. It has since been created and its members said today (February 27) during a press conference (live streamed and closely followed by millions across Greece) presenting the findings of their report that “everything was done in the wrong way”.They cannot say whether this was done on purpose or whether the authorities handled the situation “to the best of their abilities and knowledge, which was clearly insufficient”.
“Unknown fuel”
In early 2024, the then CEO of Hellenic Τrain Maurizio Capotorto testified in the Greek Parliament that there was no undeclared cargo on the freight train, only metal sheets, food and other goods as described in the accompanying documents. Mr Capotorto, who has since left his post, is now being investigated by the Athens court of first instance on suspicion of lying under oath. (It is not clear which part of his testimony is the focus of the judicial investigation.)
“Τhe explosion that followed the collision was most likely due to the arc flashes and short circuit of the catenary.”
Hellenic Train spokesperson
The initial official explanation for the 80-meter diameter 12-second fireball, and for the pool fires that burned for hours on the ground was that the cooling oil in the locomotives’ transformers was vaporised and caught fire. But specialised analysis called Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), a method that looks at the size and duration of a fire and compares it with the known properties of different flammable materials, has concluded that oil used for cooling can cause no such thing. CFD analysis verified by the University of Ghent and other researchers points to several tons of hydrocarbons, raising questions as to where they could have been placed, who would have an interest in transporting them in a clandestine manner and why. The railway accident investigation authority report, based on this analysis, points to “unknown fuel.”
“Hellenic Train has not yet had the opportunity to review the specific CFD analysis and therefore cannot confirm its reliability,” the company told Reporters United and Il Fatto, pointing instead to a report authored by its Belgian consultant Yves Carton, which blamed the fire on a series of short circuits. “Τhe explosion that followed the collision was most likely due to the arc flashes and short circuit of the catenary, that happened very close to or on the transformer, with eventually additional short circuits of the capacitors, creating an ignition and explosion of the refrigerant fluid which then burned out (2.4 ton) till the end,” the company told Reporters United. (Full company answers here.)
Χylene, illicit cargo, Greek mafia
Still, chemical analysis ordered by the families of the dead in the interior of a partly incinerated carriage revealed high concentrations of xylene and other hydrocarbons. Researchers linked to the families say that in cases of fuel fires, such as this one, not all the fuel is burned, some of it is sprayed around the area, including the inside of the passenger train. “Hellenic Train has likewise not yet had access to this chemical analysis and cannot verify its accuracy. To gather further evidence, the company has commissioned additional expert reports on the causes of the fire, with the aim of confirming or challenging the findings so far,” the company said.
Xylene and similar substances, known as solvents, are much cheaper than petrol and are systematically used for fuel adulteration, a highly lucrative business for mafia-type organisations. The authorities estimate that fuel smuggling and fuel adulteration business cost 1 billion euros a year in lost state revenue, and has doubled in the last decade.
The main entry point of those solvents into Greece is Bulgaria and they mostly make their way south to the Athens area. Dozens of mafia-related murders in recent years have been linked to the fuel adulteration business. The Greek government is asking the people to trust the court to shed light on what really happened in Tempi – but it seems that the people are sceptical.
“If it is proven beyond any doubt that the train was carrying dangerous cargo, Hellenic Train will need to face judicial but also political consequences.”
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greek prime minister
On January 26th, huge crowds gathered in squares across Greece demanding accountability. The size and the spontaneity of the protests took the government by surprise – no opposition party could possibly take credit for them, so it was impossible to downplay them in the usual way governments do with opposition led protests.
After two days of silence, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis went on television and said that “the unthinkable is now possible”, putting the blame on Hellenic Train. “If it is proven beyond any doubt that the train was carrying dangerous cargo, Hellenic Train will have to face legal but also political consequences” the Greek prime minister said.
Videosurveillance footage from 40 cameras “accidentally” lost
But in reality, the government and Hellenic Train are joined at the hip. It was the state-owned OSE company, the network operator, which was responsible for the video surveillance of the line and which somehow allowed footage from all 40 cameras in 15 locations filming the freight train to disappear. Until a few weeks ago, the judicial investigation had found full video coverage of the passenger train at every stop and zero footage of the freight train. Two years later, after the huge outcry, a handful of videos of the freight train have emerged, showing nothing irregular, but their authenticity is disputed.
The issue is affecting relations between Italy and Greece. The meeting scheduled for February 19th between Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, at which Hellenic Train’s role on the train crash was on the agenda, was reportedly cancelled at the request of the Italian side. In the major trial, which is still in the preparatory phase, the former CEO and the head of safety of Hellenic Train are prosecuted for the misdemeanours of manslaughter through negligence, grievous bodily harm through negligence and simple bodily harm through negligence for failures related to the operation of the GSM-R communication system on trains.
A request by the victims’ relatives for the charges to be upgraded to felonies, as is the case for most of the 40 or so defendants, has just been rejected.
The bill for Italian taxpayers is still unknown. A recent court ruling in Athens found Hellenic Hellenic Train partly responsible for the crash and accepted the first victim’s claim for financial compensation.
An Italian version of this article was published by Il Fatto Quotidiano.
