The calendar says 28.02.2023, the clock shows 23:21. Time freezes for the 350 passengers of the Intercity 62 passenger train that runs the Athens-Thessaloniki route. No one could have imagined that for 57 souls, mostly young children, students, this route was the last of their lives. For several kilometers the Intercity 62 marched on the same line as commercial train 63503 running the Thessaloniki-Larissa route, 57 passengers marching to their deaths. At the Annunciation the two trains collide, derail and a large fire breaks out. The shouts and screams echo through the Tempe Valley.

The passengers who were in the last carriages managed to get out alive, those who were in the first began to fight the flames. Some managed to get out alive, those with strength ran to help as many as they could, some did not.

The tragedy shocked not only Greece but also the planet and became the first news in the biggest news agencies of the world.

At first the information arrived confused, but it didn’t take long to realize the magnitude of the tragedy. The first call was made to 112 where they reported that the train had been diverted. Those who arrived first on the scene could see the fire burning. Ambulances started to arrive in line with the fire brigade. At the scene of the collision, 17 vehicles and 150 firefighters attempted to extinguish the fire, while rescue efforts were made with approximately 40 ambulances and more than 30 police officers.

The two hospitals, Larissa General and University Hospitals are put on alert. At least 85 people were injured, 25 of them seriously. Of the injured, 66 were treated in hospitals in Larissa and Thessaloniki, while 6 were treated in intensive care units.

It doesn’t take long for the first dead person to be announced. A little later the second, the third. The number stops at 57. All bodies are identified by the DNA method. The identification of some victims was extremely difficult due to the high temperatures that developed during the fire inside the first carriage. The rescuers speak of temperatures over 1300 degrees inside the burning wagons.

No one can believe what happened in Greece in 2023.

Greece mourns for the 57 souls who did not manage to reach their homes, to their families, for the wounded who are fighting. Three days of national mourning were declared in Greece, from March 1st to March 3rd, 2023. Grief is gradually turning into anger as investigations into the causes of the accident begin. The mistakes are answered, the shortcomings are many and a question “Who is to blame?”.

Shocking testimonies

Theodoros Katsioulis he was sitting in seat 41 in the third carriage, at the time of the collision of the two trains in Tempe, with him momentarily losing consciousness. When he opened his eyes, he confesses, it was as if he saw his death.

“As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw my death. I was on the ground, beaten, there was darkness everywhere. I said my prayer.”

“The wagon,” he continues, “was engulfed in flames. There was smoke everywhere, I couldn’t breathe, I’m still struggling to breathe. A young man was trying to break the window, when he succeeded with an iron, I got up to jump out of there. When I got closer, I saw that we were very high, I thought we were on a bridge”, he emphasized.

“In the darkness I heard the woman sitting next to me, asking me to help her children. I had seen them greeting their father on boarding. I took the one child in my arms, he was pale, scared and I held his hands. I told him not to be afraid and to jump out of the window. I did the same with the second child. We all helped, no one thought only of himself.”

Lazos Papazisis he is one of the survivors. He was in carriage 2. He instantly jumped off the burning train and started recording the scenes of utter horror with his mobile phone.

“We hear a loud ‘bang’. They start breaking the glass from the window, I bend down, I fall down. Glasses started being thrown at the head. After the lights from the train went out, we shined with a flashlight from the cell phone and then one by one we jumped down. The girls were screaming, screaming ‘help’ and there were two girls with amputated legs.”

Stefanos Gogakos he also described the nightmare he lived through: “Suddenly we hear a loud bang and the windows all broke at once and we received the shards from the windows on our heads. Some seats were turned upside down and our personal belongings were thrown.” Then those who were freed from wagon five had to walk, as Mr. Gogakos described, about 1500 meters, reaching a clearing, where then and there the survivors saw the ferocious fire. At the end, the passenger characteristically said “thank God for saving me from Dante’s inferno”.

Vasiliki Economaki was among the wounded. A few days later she will talk about what she experienced: “I remember everything being black, the lights being off. Let everything be black, let’s try to get the irons off us from the ruins. I was trying to find the people who were with me. I was calling for help. I remember burning and I went out because I was burning. That’s how I was saved, I jumped into something.” In addition, she remembers that the canteen wagon was full and it was difficult to find a seat, while after the collision, people were burning alive and shouting”

Dimitris Arapis, also injured, he added: “Thank you to those who were there helping, because there were many who just took their bags and left. And we were shouting at them that we were going to fall. Because we had thrown them down, the second wagon because the wheels had fallen off the wagon and it had wires and we threw them there so as not to hit any wires and they took them from there. But there was also a girl who had a broken arm and was helping.”

Stergios Minaemis, a passenger of the fatal train will say a few days later: “I was in seat 51 in carriage 3 with the intention of reaching Thessaloniki, to find a place to rent because my brother was already waiting for me and to start a new beginning. A large suitcase, a jacket, my computer and my cell phone. Nothing was saved. Everything became coal. I was reading an article on my cell phone and I remember the kid sitting across from me. First I saw the kid fly to my left and pop by me and then I knew there was braking or a collision. We couldn’t understand at the time what happened. If something had been thrown on the tracks, if we had derailed or if we had crashed into another train,” the young man initially said and went on to describe:

“My first concern was to find where to leave. There is no comparing the carriage from how we got in to how it was when we left. You didn’t have a sense of space, it wasn’t familiar to you but everything was a mass, a chaos you didn’t know what was a compartment, what was a corridor, what was a window. You didn’t know which was up, down, left and right. God gave us at that moment a window, through the smoke, through which we could clearly see the road. Through complete darkness, fires by the window, smoke, we had no oxygen and we were on a couple of breaths. I don’t know if anyone managed to take a third breath before everything was closed. We saw the tar, the road, the lights and from there we understood that we would be saved.”

As he said, the height was high, about two meters, but inside they could not breathe, they were burning. “That’s where I say, ‘boy, you’re either going to jump and if you’re crippled, you’re crippled, because underneath there were irons like blades from the crash, or you’re going to burn alive and run out of oxygen.’ So it was not negotiable. It was a one-way street and we were trying to get to the road which was not so easy”

A year later…

A year later, 21-year-old Gerasimos, the sole survivor of the first carriage, is still in a comatose state. He struggles to stay alive by giving his own fight every day.

One year later, three findings and an ongoing investigation. 15 executives and employees of the OSE have already been prosecuted, while the station master of the shift and the administration inspector of the OSE have been remanded in custody. The House inquiry into Tempe began on November 23 and concluded after 89 days on Tuesday, February 20, 2024.

A year later the wounds still bleed countless times because they remain unanswered.

One year later, the 57 souls are asking for redemption and the mothers who were never able to see their children again and embrace them, justice.

The detailed list of victims:

Panagiotis Bournazis of Evangelos, 15 years old, Thessaloniki
Anastasia Papageli of Ilias, 19 years old, Marousi
Maria-Thomai Psaropoulos of Antonio, 20 years old, Thessaloniki
Golden Plakia of Nikolaos, 20 years old, Trikala
Thomas Plakias of Nikolaos, 20 years old, Trikala
Anastasia-Maria Plakia of Dimitriou, 20 years old, Trikala
Francesca Beza of Dimitriou, 20 years old, Thessaloniki
Claudia Lata of Edouard, 21, Larissa
Eleni Tsintza of Dimitriou, 21 years old, Thessaloniki
Anastasios Koutsopoulos of Dimitriou, 21 years old, Karditsa
Iordanis Adamakis of Adam, 23 years old, Kavala
Kyprianos Papaioannou of Christodoulos, 23 years old, Cyprus
Ifigenia Mitska of Sotiriou, 23 years old, Giannitsa
Denis Routsi of Panos, 23 years old, Athens
Agapi Tsaklidou of Georgiou, 23 years old, Thessaloniki
Aphrodite Tsioma of Evangelos, 23 years old, Thessaloniki
George Papazoglou of Lyssimachos, 23 years old, Thessaloniki
Nikitas Karatheodorou of Athanasios, 24 years old, Thessaloniki
Angelos Telkeridis of Christos, 24 years old, Naousa
Kalliopi Porfyridou of Lazaros, 24 years old, Thessaloniki
Anastasia Adamidis of Stelios, 25, Cyprus
Dimitra-Evangelia Kapetaniou of Kleanthi, 25 years old, Thessaloniki
Elisavet Hatzivasiliou of Nikolaou, 27 years old, Thessaloniki
Dimitrios Aslanidis of Pavlos, 27 years old, Thessaloniki
Ioannis Karasavvas of Antonio, 28 years old, Thessaloniki
Sotirios Karageorgiou Dimitriou, 28 years old, Thessaloniki
Elpida Houpa Christos, 29 years old, Athens
Dimitrios of the House of Efthymios, 29 years old, Alexandroupoli
Panagiotis Hatjicharalambous of Vassiliou, 29 years old, Attiki
Nikolaos Nalbantis of Dimitriou, 29 years old, Thessaloniki
Dimitrios Massalis of Angelos, 30 years old, Marousi
Sophia-Irini Tahmazidou of Anastasiou, 32 years old, Thessaloniki
Vaios Vlachos Christos, 34 years old, Karditsa
Mia Mohammad Edris of Sahed Mia, 34, Bangladesh
Athena Katsaras of Athanasios, 35 years old, Athens
Culea Ionel of Petrica, 35, Romania
Elena Durmika of Antoniou, 35, Germany
Spyridon Voulgaris of Panagiotis, 35 years old, Maroussi
Vaia Bleka of Anastasios, 43 years old, Larissa
Andreas Pavlidis of Prodromos, 49 years old, Thessaloniki
Ioannis Voutsinas of Panagiotis, 49 years old, Piraeus
Maria Mourtzakis of Georgiou, 52 years old, Heraklion
Vasilios-Kyriakos Kottas of Andreas, 52 years old, Thessaloniki
Evangelos Bournazis of Dimitriou, 54 years old, Thessaloniki
Ioannis Tzovaras of Konstantinos, 55 years old, Lamia
Chrysi Koukariotou of Hippocrates, 56 years old, Drama
Vasiliki Chlorou of Panagiotis, 56 years old, Larissa
Maria Egout of Dimitriou, 56 years old, Thessaloniki
Maria Miari of Spyridon, 56 years old, Corfu
Georgios Fotopoulos of Ilias, 57 years old, Switzerland
George Koutsoubas of Ioannis, 59 years old, Amaliada
Bozo Pavlini of Sokrat, 62, Albania
Evangelia Dos Santos Silva of Hippocrates, 63, Drama
John Kariotis of Stylianos, 63 years old, Attica
George Kyriakidis of Dimitriou, 67 years old, Tashkent