Tens of thousands of people attended a rally organized by the Association of the Families of Victims of the Tempe train collision, which killed 57 people in February 2023, at central Syntagma Square, in Athens, on January 26, 2025. [AP]
The government was categorical in its assurances that the deadly freight train that rammed into a passenger train at Tempe in 2023 was not carrying anything suspect or explosive. First and foremost the prime minister, who said, “We now know with certainty; we know exactly what the freight train was carrying, and there was nothing incendiary.”
“The collision was so violent and so intense that, according to experts, it caused an initial conflagration and there were, obviously, some flammable materials – like oil – that caught fire upon impact. Therefore, I want to respond to this categorically – because, as you know, conspiracy theories thrive everywhere, not just in our country – there was nothing suspicious on the freight train,” he added in an interview with Alpha TV on March 21, 2023, shortly under a month after the tragedy.
Such premature, categorical statements led Kyriakos Mitsotakis two years later to a humiliating change of stance: “That was the information we had at that moment,” he told the same broadcaster on January 29, 2025. “So, if you’re asking me whether I’ve regretted what I saw or I was wrong, I’ll be straight with you: Knowing what I know today, I obviously would have never said what I did,” the prime minister added.
The prime minister’s admission that he was wrong did not come at some politically neutral moment. The unscheduled interview would not have taken place without the pressure from the mass rallies held the previous Sunday. But this is the least of it; after all, people make mistakes and prime ministers only rarely admit to them. The worst thing is that Mitsotakis made the same mistake again.
“If certain operational decisions were made to stabilize the ground so that a crane could lift the train and allow us to see what was underneath, I am not aware of them, nor am I obliged to be. However, I am confident that everything was done with the best of intentions. At that moment, the goal was not to cover something up,” he said.
Where does this confidence that “everything was done with the best of intentions” come from? If he was misinformed about the actions of these people, how can he be certain about their intentions, when we all know that intentions are hidden deep in the human psyche and unknown to all? Or, to put it differently, who told him that “everything was done with the best of intentions”? The same people who assured him that there was nothing suspicious on the train?
But even worse than that is the fact that we clearly don’t learn from our mistakes – not just the prime minister, but the entire state apparatus. The categorical narrative that there “was nothing suspicious on the freight train” may benefit possible smugglers of incendiary materials, but the main problem is that we still haven’t fixed the system for transporting goods. So much so, that the relevant minister, Christos Staikouras, admitted just a couple of days ago that he has no way of knowing, with absolute certainty, what trains are carrying nowadays.
His assurances that the government “is constantly strengthening safety in transport,” on Skai TV on January 30, is not only riddled with holes, but we can also wash out the prime minister’s promises to “find out the truth about exactly what happened, to ensure justice is served and those responsible are held accountable, and, most importantly, to guarantee that such a tragedy never happens again by providing Greece with modern, safe and reliable trains of European standards.”
Accidents happen everywhere, even in cities that are supposed to be extremely well protected – just the other day, 67 people were killed in Washington when an airplane crashed into a helicopter. The issue is what happens after such tragedies, whether the people who have been sounding the alarm – as many did before the Tempe tragedy – are finally heeded. Today, two years after that terrible incident, we cannot feel safe.
