According to a report sent to the Greek Parliament by a prosecutor in the city of Larissa, about 300 cubic meters of earth, containing evidence linked to the Tempe railway disaster, were removed from the site in the days following the February 28, 2023 crash of a passenger and a freight train “without any authority providing approval.”
The crash, which resulted in 57 fatalities, took place shortly before midnight on February 28.
By 2.30 a.m. on March 1, the local Civil Protection Coordinating Body was in a full emergency meeting. According to the testimony of participants, they agreed to provide heavy machinery, including digging equipment, to the site. Two hours later, the region was asked to provide the equipment.
According to the prosecutor, “no collective decision was determined to have been taken to intervene on the site for the purpose of tampering.”
The owners and drivers of the trucks that removed the earth testified that per the request of the Fire Service, they uprooted shrubs, laid gravel to keep the ground from sinking and, during the second and third day following the disaster, removed the dirt to a property the removal company owned.
Despite pressing questioning, the fire service denied making the request, and so did the police. But the three persons involved in the removal implicated the Fire Service, twice. They said the reason they were given was that large trucks that would remove the train carriages needed open space to operate. The police, who controlled access to the site, never stopped them to check what they were carrying and what their destination was.
The local traffic police chief has testified that the regional governor, Kostas Agorastos, had asked him on-site, on March 3, whether the works would finish soon and asked him to take into account that railway ought to resume soon. The policeman said this was not his job.
Christos Triantopoulos, deputy minister to the prime minister, in charge of state aid and natural disaster recovery was also present at the meeting. It is against Triantopoulos, who holds the same portfolio, but within the Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry, that the main opposition PASOK party, has demanded an investigation.
Minister of State Makis Voridis told Parliament Wednesday that the government accepted PASOK’s request and would vote for it.
