When a Government Tries to Cover Its Crimes

On the evening of February 28, 2023, passenger train IC-62 and freight train 63503 collided head-on in Tempi, Greece, just minutes after departing in opposite directions.

Though traveling below the speed limit, the crash was violent. The first-class coach of IC-62 was catapulted off the tracks, landing below and being completely destroyed. A “fireball” erupted, followed by fires that rapidly consumed the train. “Fire pools” from flammable oils engulfed the restaurant and second-class wagon, burning them to a crisp.

57 people died in Greece’s deadliest train collision, and 81 were seriously injured.

29 out of the 57 were described as burned in the official post-mortem reports. Many of them were university students, more than half under the age of 29. They were beloved family members, friends, and partners.

Those who survived the crash narrowly escaped death and witnessed the horrifying aftermath first-hand. Survivors described scenes reminiscent of a war zone — human remains on the ground, the stench of burning flesh, smoke, and flammable substances filling the air.

Directly and indirectly affected parties were severely impacted by shock and emotional trauma.

This tragedy, one of the greatest in the nation’s modern history, was neither accidental nor inevitable, and it certainly wasn’t due to human error alone. The controversies surrounding this event are numerous, and they continue to haunt Greece’s people.

Entirely preventable and avoidable

A week before the collision, the minister of infrastructure and transport Kostas Karamanlis vehemently opposed another MP’s criticism of the safety of a different train line in parliament.

He stated that it was shameful to doubt the line’s safety, and equalized its safety levels to the Athens — Thessaloniki line that the IC-62 and 63503 trains took that catastrophic night.

The infamous Contract 717 was signed in 2014. Co-financed by the European Union with a 41 million budget, it had the purpose of upgrading the signalling-remote control systems and the replacement of 70 track changes, including the Athens — Thessaloniki line.

The majority of experts and railway workers agree that if it was completed by 2016 as contractually obligated, this collision would have never occurred.

However, until the crash, and despite eight extensions and the signing of a supplementary contract, the completion of the project remained pending as “obstacles” and “delays” constantly arose.

The station master, who was not qualified for that position and still employed due to 717 not having materialized, did not use the automatic route planning method and did not recognize his own error in time to intervene and position the switches correctly or instruct the train drivers to stop.

From revealed recordings of the station master’s communications, the lack of qualifications and incapability to perform his duties was exposed. It’s tragic that such a system is still used in an EU member state.

Confirmation of the obvious

The long-awaited Rail Accident Report on the Tempi disaster was recently produced by the newly established national organization for the investigation of air and rail accidents through a committee of experts.

The families of the 57 pleaded with the committee not to hold the presentation of this Report on the 2nd anniversary of the crash to dedicate the day to commemoration and protest, but their wishes were not heard.

Of course, as was anticipated, the conclusions of this Report are not definite. After all, it is unlikely that an investigative committee indirectly appointed by the government would produce analyses that objectively and sufficiently examine the government’s responsibilities.

It is was even more unlikely that those conclusions would be detrimental to the government.

Indeed, the impartiality of the committee’s president has been questioned due to his admiration and significant ties with the Prime Minister’s sister and ex-minister of foreign affairs, Dora Bakoyianni (politics is a family business in Greece).

Nevertheless, as biased as the committee’s president may or may not be, he clearly stated that “those who delayed 717, and I’m talking about the senior leadership, have decisively contributed to the loss of these people.”

The quick cover-up

Many damning realities have been gradually surfacing over the past two years. One glaring issue is how the wrong individuals were swiftly sent to the scene just four hours after the crash:

By 04:00 the first bulldozer and 2 large cranes had started arriving at the scene and the Fire Service commanding. The work started during the night and by first light the cranes were into position and started to work, lifting wreckage and whole wagons

With instructions and authorizations from the regional authority, gravel was used to fill cavities on the ground to set up the cranes. While this is necessary for stabilization, the execution was problematic, to say the least.

Given the highly centralized nature of the Greek state, it’s likely the central government ordered the intervention.

Within three days bulldozers, excavators, flatbed and gravel trucks arrived, and the search for human remains by the Fire Department ended. The operators of these machines stated that about 20 trucks of gravel were then removed and transferred to a nearby field.

The decision to stop the search so abruptly is directly linked with the need for “clearance” of the site and transfer of the wagons and debris. This resulted in one of the victims not being identified as no DNA sample was found.

Criminal charges were brought against government officials and employees for the arbitrary intervention of a crime scene. When investigating the material more than a year later, the authorities found samples in which personal belongings and biological material of the victims were identified.

The irresponsible mismanagement of the scene led to the loss of evidence that would prove vital for the investigation:

The site of the accident was not handled as holding any valuable evidence, no samples were collected and no careful recording of the debris was kept before the heavy machinery lifted and trampled on everything, before gravel was removed and the area was swept clean

The unknown substance

If that weren’t enough, the cause of the explosion, known as the “fireball”, remains unknown to this day.

Chemists were assigned to examine the scene more than a month after the crash. The Report notes that the origin of the fireball has not been clarified yet and requires further investigation by specialized scientists abroad, and confirms that at least 5 to 7 people lost their lives not from the collision but from the fire.

While silicone oil in such trains is standard and not easily flammable, the presence of undeclared, highly flammable material (such as xylene or the unknown fuel not listed in the transport documents) raises serious questions about improper freight handling and safety violations.

Collaboration for concealment

Freedom of the media has been eroded in Greece, the same family dynasties that lead political parties own the major media outlets.

Famous journalists, who are supposed to uphold journalistic integrity and their obligation to present what is fact and true but are part of the Greek system of corruption, essentially joined the damage limitation efforts of the government.

They shamelessly portrayed the deaths of the 57 as a necessary sacrifice for the Greek transport system’s transformation while labeling the millions protesting against the government as tax evaders.

Adonis Georgiades, an acidulous, imprudent, foul-mouthed, corrupt clown who shouldn’t be anywhere near a governmental office but is Greece’s minister of health, went on a propaganda tour on television.

As the most seasoned orator of New Democracy, the ruling party, he loudly and indignantly denounced anyone who rightfully pointed out the obvious trail leading to the government’s responsibilities.

The Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, flaunted the 40% his party currently holds in parliament in his speech, while confidently arguing that the good deeds of his government outweigh the bad ones, which is an improper comparison that simply falls short.

However, no one believed their lies this time around.

Revolution not a reaction

The Tempi crash has been the cause of an unprecedented and exuberant public mobilization to express discontent for the government’s active cover-up efforts, lack of transparency, accountability, and administration of justice throughout this period.

In my lifetime, I have never seen the Greek public so united around a single issue, with the highlight of last February’s demonstrations across the globe. In Athens, it exceeded 800 thousand participants (while the Greek police and broadcasters intentionally undervalued them to be 180 thousand).

Although Mitsotakis is adept in statecraft, his response to the nation’s most significant tragedy in the last decades was a ridiculous and lackluster reshuffling of the government, in which many of the major ministries remain unchanged and his loyal servants fill the other gaps.

They rely on the short memory of the disheartened Greek people. They seem to believe that just like the 2018 Attica wildfires, the debt crisis of the 2010s, or the subsequent recession, people will forget.

But it does not seem that they will, even two years later.

According to recent polls, 71% (sample of 1001 persons above 17 years old) believe that the government did not ease the administration of justice and the investigation for the Tempi crash, 72% believe that it conspired to cover it up, and 80.1% believe that the government did not do everything it could to shed light on this tragedy.

New Democracy is plummeting in the polls, which indicates a potential shift to the dynamics of the political landscape.

Keep the momentum for justice alive

This is not a witch hunt, this is not the instinct of a mob trying to find a scapegoat. This is a tale as old as time itself, and it’s a theme that has been echoing for the most part of the country’s modern history.

How many lives have to be lost for someone to be held responsible for the shortcomings of Greece’s corrupt system and political leaders or for real change to happen?

This is not an accident.

It could have been me or you on that train. These people were not at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Just like any reasonable person, they merely believed that they weren’t gambling their lives by trusting that their country cared the slightest about their safety. But unfortunately, it didn’t and it won’t.

The nation’s youngest and brightest minds have been flocking to other countries to follow their dreams, and you can clearly see why.

But, the fire that has ignited the people’s spirit to pursue the administration of justice and the rule of law needs to continue burning.

We owe it to the 57 victims, and to ourselves, to ensure this tragedy isn’t buried with them, to those who suffer under the incapacity of this regime which is misleadingly called democracy in Greece, but also to those who will probably be sacrificed due to its criminal negligence in the future.