Tempi train crash
Updated: Wikipedia source
On 28 February 2023, a head-on collision occurred between two trains south of the Tempe Valley in Greece, about halfway between the Greek villages of Tempi and Evangelismos in the Thessaly region. The collision, follow-up derailment and fireball that ensued involving the InterCity 62 (IC62) passenger train operated by Hellenic Train and an intermodal freight train, killed 57, heavily injured 81 and lightly injured 99 people. The estimated number of people were 352 on the passenger train including 10 staff, and 2 staff on the freight train totalling 354 people on both trains. It is the most serious railway accident in Europe since 2013, when a train derailment in Santiago de Compostela killed 79 people. Vigils, angry protests, and clashes with the police occurred throughout Greece following the crash. Beginning on 2 March 2023, railway workers of Hellenic Train and the Athens Metro went on strike to protest the dangerous conditions related to the crash. Following the crash, Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned, taking responsibility for the crash and for his failure to bring Greek railways to 21st-century standards. However, he was reelected after standing for office just two months after the incident. The investigation has so far implicated 43 state officials – those directly responsible for the accident, such as the station master and Hellenic Train officials, but also those who failed to carry out the necessary upgrades to the system (European Train Control System and centralized traffic control). Accusations have also been made against officials from the Ministry of Infrastructure who manipulated the site of the accident with "landfilling" that followed the completion of the rescue operation. However, the trial is still a long way off (estimated at the end of 2025), with hundreds of petitions pending for the investigating judge to consider. The development of the investigation process has been closely followed by the Greek press, while private investigations by the relatives of the victims and through independent institutional bodies, such as the bar associations, collecting evidence to support the criminal accusations, has been an unprecedented phenomenon for Greek society.