NPR, February 2025
Evdokia Tsagli remembers laughing moments before her train wagon spun through the air. The ordeal lasted seven seconds. For Tsagli, “It was like eternity.” “I think I said over 100 times to myself, ‘When is it gonna stop?'” she recalls. On Feb. 28, 2023, her carriage in a Greek passenger train landed on top of the dining car ahead, flames consuming the wreckage. The train, carrying hundreds — many of them university students — collided head-on with a freight train in Tempi Valley.
It was Greece’s deadliest railway disaster. Fifty-seven people died. Now, new evidence suggests that many may not have been killed by the crash itself, but by a fire that followed. Greek officials quickly blamed the crash on human error, attributing the fire to silicone-based cooling oil. But two years later, victims’ families and independent investigators say that explanation doesn’t hold.
