A Greek court hearing the trial over the 2023 Tempi train disaster on Tuesday ordered the submission of European Commission letters and other legal documents covering the period from 2016 to 2026, concerning Greece’s compliance with its railway safety obligations.
The order was addressed to the Foreign Affairs and Infrastructure and Transport ministries, following a request by Loukas Apostolides, a lawyer representing the prosecution in support of the charges.
The prosecutor had recommended granting the request and submitting the relevant documents to the court within 30 days.
The court reserved its decision on a separate request by Apostolides to summon as witnesses the secretary-generals of the Infrastructure and Transport Ministry who served between 2016 and 2023. The prosecutor had described that request as premature because a judicial council has yet to rule on the matter, and had deferred a position on its merits.
NEWSLETTER TABLE TALK
Never miss a story.
Subscribe now.
The most important news & topics every week in your inbox.
The hearing on October 27 also included testimony from survivors and relatives of those killed in the crash.
Survivors describe escape from wrecked train
Two women who were traveling together in compartment 6 of the second carriage of Intercity 62 recounted how they escaped from the mangled train as smoke made breathing difficult and flames approached.
Triantafyllia Koutsiala and Anthi Vassou told the court that passengers threw their suitcases onto the ground to create a makeshift landing area from which they could jump out of the damaged carriage.
Koutsiala said the collision fractured her collarbone and injured her ear with broken glass. When she looked out of a window, she was frightened by the height of the drop.
“I said that if we fell from there, we would be left paralyzed,” she testified.
She then looked for another way out but encountered the fire. Within minutes, smoke had made it impossible for her to move in that direction.
Using photographs, the presiding judge asked Koutsiala to reconstruct her route through and out of the carriage. She described how passengers reached from one window toward another to help a young woman escape, allowing her to land on the suitcases below. Koutsiala and Vassou then got out in the same way.
Koutsiala said she reached the ground at approximately 11:45 p.m. She recorded a video on her phone to send a plea for help and described a large fire and the cries of people outside the train.
Firefighters arrived about 15 minutes later, she said, but did not allow the survivors to return to help those who remained inside.
Witnesses recount injuries and efforts to help others
Vassou described the destruction inside the carriage after the collision.
“The seats had come loose, a large cable was hanging above our heads, and the compartments and the corridor had been deformed,” she testified.
At first, she said, they could see the glow of the fire through their window below them, although the flames had not yet reached their location.
As they tried to escape, the passengers attempted to help injured people, covering some with their jackets. They heard cries of pain but could not always determine where they were coming from.
Vassou also described injuries to her head, arm and ribs, as well as difficulty walking for a prolonged period after the crash.
“I still have pieces of glass in my hand,” she said.
Relatives seek answers and accountability
Earlier in the hearing, Marina Dos Santos, daughter of Evangelia Koukarióti Dos Santos and niece of Chrysi Koukarióti, testified alongside Stylianos Koukariótis, the brother of the two victims.
Dos Santos said she was in Germany when she received the news and traveled to Larissa, the city near the crash site. She described the difficulty families faced in determining exactly what had happened to their loved ones and what had been recovered after the collision.
Koukariótis said he did not feel driven by a desire for revenge. Instead, he wanted to ensure that the loss of so many lives would not prove meaningless and that everyone responsible for carrying out their duties would do so properly.