Tempi trial: survivors describe the crash and fire, demand those responsible go to prison

Testimony from the second carriage

On 26 October 2026 the trial over the Tempi railway disaster continued at the three-member criminal appeals court in Larissa, at the 44th hearing of the case. Four witnesses testified that day, and two of them had been passengers in the second carriage of the Intercity train that crashed on 28 February 2023. The first was a survivor who was thrown from the carriage with serious head injuries and told the court she had no memory of events after the collision. She said she was in a coma for 30 days and has undergone six operations, with treatment continuing to this day. The friend she had been travelling with did not survive the crash.

Impact, escape and fire

The second witness, a woman who was travelling with her seven-year-old son, told the court that the train braked sharply for about five seconds before the impact. She said she fell onto her son and that the seats had been deformed, leaving her unable to find her fellow passengers. Helped by other passengers, she and her son got out through a gap and reached the tracks, passing over debris from the buffet car, which she said had not yet caught fire at that moment. She recalled seeing two fires at first, one in front of the second carriage and one behind it. About twenty minutes later, she said, the carriage was fully ablaze. She described the atmosphere as suffocating and said her throat burned, though she could not identify a smell. Asked by the presiding judge, she said no explosion had occurred either before or after the collision.

Demands for accountability

Both witnesses spoke about the lasting effects of the crash and the need for justice. The first survivor said she would not rest until those responsible were imprisoned, and she criticised the absence of most of the defendants from the proceedings. She also claimed that money had been spent on interventions at the site after the disaster. The second witness said the people who died should not have met that end, and she called for justice for the victims. She said the court's decisions would determine the safety of citizens in the future.