- “On Friday afternoon, March 3, 2023, I was informed by Mr. Xifaras that the damaged rolling stock would have to be removed by Monday morning.
- “Oil residues from the damaged rolling stock were found in the drainage channel and … were cleaned with rags and cloths, and the channel was turned over clean on Monday. The cloths used were placed in containers to be treated as waste”.
- Ioannis Xifaras: Who is the Secretary General of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and why was he not called to testify before the Parliamentary Investigation Committee, although he was the one who managed the railway matters (contract 717) both under K. Ach. Karamanlis and G. Gerapetritis, in addition to giving the order for its filling in?
By Aris Chatzigeorgiou
“Shocking details of a rapid “clean-up” operation at the Tempi disaster site, which left 57 dead and 180 injured, are contained in an internal Hellenic Train report. The document, accompanied by his own photographs, was written by a company executive who directly names the then Secretary General of Transport, Ioannis Xifaras, as the person who ordered the rapid removal of all debris.
On Friday afternoon, March 3, 2023, Mr. Xifaras informed me that the damaged rolling stock needed to be removed immediately,” writes the executive, whose identity is available to Data Journalists. He goes on to explain that the order was for all the wreckage to be removed by the weekend – just four days after the tragic accident – so that at least one of the two tracks could be handed over to OSE on Monday morning to begin operations, as if the train service would begin immediately, when in fact it would take a full month.
The description of the removal of every piece of evidence from the site of the tragedy, given by the Hellenic Train executive, has nothing to do with the strict investigation protocols followed internationally. The way in which debris is scattered after a head-on collision of two trains is an absolutely necessary material for those who will investigate the causes of the accident in order to prevent its recurrence.
Unfortunately, in the case of Tempi, the government acted as if it was not a railway accident, but a wild party, and those in charge had to erase the evidence before the … boss returned. The manager of Hellenic Train, who also testified before the investigator, begins his account with the first hours of his arrival in Tempi, before dawn.
He talks about a number of Hellenic Train employees, as well as others from various agencies, who entered the wreckage and began moving the twisted metal without first ensuring that its condition had been documented by an investigator. All communication took place with the fire brigade and the police during the first two days (March 1 and 2, 2023), and only on Friday did discussions begin on the instructions of the investigator and the experts he appointed, i.e. those who concluded that the fire was caused by silicone oils.
It is important to remember that in the Tempi tragedy, the government violated Law 5014, which it had passed in January 2023. According to this law, the investigation of a railway accident must be carried out by a special agency, the National Organization for the Investigation of Air and Railway Accidents and Transport Safety (EOADASAAM). EOADASAAM is responsible for securing and clearing the accident site once the necessary material has been collected. The same law stipulates that if EOADASAAM is not established, the task will be taken over by the previously existing Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Committee (EDAAP). The government had neither established EOADASAAM nor dispatched EDAAP, resulting in the investigation being handled by traffic police experts who could not prevent the clearing of the site and the loss of evidence.
Let’s now look at the key points of the description of the entire process as outlined by the Hellenic Train executive in his report. It should be noted that the original text is written in English “to be readable by the foreign employees of the company”.
Early morning hours of Wednesday, March 1, 2023
The executive mentioned that he learned of the accident involving Intercity 62 at 23:43, 25 minutes after the head-on collision occurred. He describes a series of phone calls with other Hellenic Train executives from Athens, Northern Greece, and Larissa. He also mentions that arrangements were made during the night for cranes and trucks stationed in Piraeus to reach Tempi. However, his initial findings do not concern the passenger train but the freight train:
“From the first inspection, we found that the last eight wagons of the freight train had not derailed and could be removed from the site by rail. For this reason, a rescue team from Thessaloniki was instructed to bring two MLW (Canadian-built diesel locomotives used to haul freight) to transport the wagons with their cargo to Thessaloniki”.
Once the removal of the cargo was arranged, the description shifts back to the wreckage of the freight train: “The two locomotives of the freight train (numbers 120022 and 120012) were destroyed, while the wagons carrying the metal plates suffered considerable damage. Pieces of the destroyed rolling stock and cargo were scattered all over the area”.
It is noticeable that there is no mention of the fire that burned for several hours, the smoke or the burns that we have read about in other testimonies of survivors and rescuers. The documentation of the situation now continues with the passenger train:
In passenger train IC62, it was found that the last two cars (numbers 6-2096563 and 7-2096507) remained on the tracks, the fourth and fifth (numbers 2096569 and 2096567) had derailed next to the tracks, the third (2096503) was in a vertical position, and the remaining cars – the locomotive (120023), the first class car (8496019) and the restaurant car (8896734) – had all become one mass.
At this point, the removals begin, with the first reference to the missing: “On the passenger side of the train, I understand that the removal of the damaged rolling stock has begun by the crane company hired by the region. The work was carried out in coordination with the fire brigade and EMAK, who were responsible for locating and managing the missing. In the afternoon of March 1, Hellenic Train’s cranes arrived and began “working on the side of the freight train to remove the debris from the two locomotives”.
Thursday, March 2, 2023
One day and two nights have passed since the head-on collision, and on Thursday morning, the bodies of the deceased engineers of the freight train are found:
“In the morning, the removal of parts from the wreckage on the side of the passenger train began in cooperation with the fire department to locate missing crew members. The company’s crane began moving the first electric locomotive (120022) of the freight train. At the beginning of the operation, traces of human remains were found, and the fire department took over to “inspect the entire cabin”.
The work continues without any mention of investigators collecting evidence, which could disrupt the process of clearing the wreckage.
“At 14:17, the eight wagons of the freight train left for Thessaloniki after receiving permission from the fire department and police. They were accompanied by two technicians to monitor the composition during the transit”.
Friday, March 3rd, 2023
The description of the third day begins with a crowd of Hellenic Train employees arriving at Tempi from Larissa, Thessaloniki, Volos, Piraeus, and Rentis. There is also the first tentative mention of restrictions on the removal of wreckage:
“I was informed by Mr. Vlachogiannis, the police officer in charge of the preliminary investigation, that by order of the prosecutor’s office, not all passenger cars should be removed from Larissa and transported to a single location until the investigation is completed”.
At this point, the traffic experts, who recently gave their conclusions regarding the company’s videos from the cameras, also appear:
“Also present were the experts appointed by the prosecutor’s office, Mr. Bartzopoulos Stavros and Vasilakos Apostolos, who asked for updates on any information or developments related to the findings of the trains”. That is, the investigators asked for updates (which they should have received first) from the company officials who are being investigated for their responsibility in the accident…
Appearance of Xifaras
This is where the Secretary General of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, Giannis Xifaras, comes in:
“At noon, I was informed by Mr. Xifaras that the damaged rolling stock must be removed as soon as possible,” writes the Hellenic Train official. As if he were in charge of the investigation or acting as a prosecutor, he gave the order for immediate removal so that at least one of the two tracks would be cleared by the weekend.
The Hellenic Train official did not mention the deputy minister of the prime minister, Christos Triantopoulos, or the regional governor of Thessaly, Kostas Agorastos. It is worth noting that, according to testimony and numerous reports, a meeting was held at the site on the same day, attended by Triantopoulos, Xifaras and Agorastos, and it was there that the decision was made to “fill in,” as it was called – to remove hundreds of cubic meters of soil from the area.
However, while Mr. Agorastos has already been indicted and Mr. Triantopoulos seems to be preparing himself as an “Iphigenia” to save another government official, Mr. Xifaras has so far been carefully protected. He is one of the persons who was not called to testify before the Parliamentary Investigation Committee for Tempi, although he was the one who managed the railway issues both during the term of K. Ach. Karamanlis and G. Gerapetritis. He was the same person who, before becoming Secretary General of the Ministry in 2021, had been an advisor to the Board of ERGOSE since 2019, responsible precisely for projects such as those in contract 717 (signaling-telecontrol-ETCS), which were not completed but could have prevented the disaster at Tempi. However, the farcical committee of inquiry preferred to call ministers and officials from the 1990s, such as Tasos Mantelis… The role of Giannis Xifaras will be discussed below.
Police surveillance and the gas pipeline
Alongside the operation to quickly clear the area, concerns about the possible alteration of evidence began to emerge, albeit belatedly, on Friday afternoon:
“In the afternoon, during the visit of the regional governor, I was informed that in the Zahari-Koulouri area, where the parts are transported, a fence is needed to secure them, as they are evidence for the preliminary investigation and future use by any experts.” Only then did “the area begin to be guarded by the police”.
The Hellenic Train official also gives his own version of the filling in of the area and the later attempt by the government to justify it by the existence of a natural gas pipeline that runs next to the train tracks.
“After removing the electric locomotive 120012, it was decided to move Mr. Binta’s crane so that work could continue overnight to remove the cars, metal plates, and all other components. Meanwhile, a space was created on the passenger side of the train so that the two large cranes could be positioned to remove the cars. It should be noted that the main natural gas pipeline runs next to the track. For this reason, its route was marked and the area where the crane feet could be placed was restricted”.
It should be recalled that the government has claimed that the soil (which could contain vital evidence as well as human remains) was removed to stabilize the ground and prevent any risk to the pipeline running underneath. However, the report clearly states that the area where the pipeline runs was marked, and the cranes were set up away from it.
On Saturday, the “black boxes” were finally considered
It took until the fourth day after the tragedy for the investigators to decide on Saturday (March 4, 2023) to search for the speed and distance recorders, the “black boxes” that are present in every locomotive. Clearly, clearing the area seemed more… important:
“The removal of the wreckage from the uphill track and the containers continued in order to clear the track so that OSE’s work could begin. One container that was on the damaged wagon would be transported by road and the other by train.
At the same time, in coordination with the experts, technicians visited the area in Koulouri to inspect locomotives 120022 and 12012 to find the speed recorders. The places where they were located were found and it was agreed that the next day they would go with the appropriate tools to remove them and hand them over to the experts”. The recorders were located on Sunday, while the rest of the wreckage continued to be trucked away for storage.
Sunday with rags and cloths
The uphill track had been cleared since Saturday afternoon, and OSE was able to begin restoration work. Next to it, the downhill track, where the two trains had run simultaneously in opposite directions before the head-on collision, still bore the marks of the enormous forces that had been exerted on it.
But there was one last obstacle to making the area “spotless”: the oils that had leaked from the freight train’s engines. Perhaps the same “silicone oils” that were initially thought to be responsible for the fireball, the same ones that have puzzled the NTUA professor for almost a year, from whom the investigating judge requested a special expert opinion. The description given to the Hellenic Train official is far from such torture, as the oil residues are collected with rags and cloths and thrown in the garbage.
“After removing all the sheet metal from the side of the freight train, petroleum residue from the rolling stock was found in the drainage channel, and the fire department was asked to collect it to prevent it from flowing into the creek. An attempt was made to pump the liquid, but due to the presence of sand and the very low water level, the pump could not function. Also, since it was Saturday afternoon and Sunday, there was no company available to come immediately. For this reason, rags and cloths were used to remove the residue, and the canal was handed over clean on Monday. The cloths used were placed in containers to be treated as “waste”.
The role of G. Xifaras before the Tempi tragedy
So far, Giannis Xifaras has been kept out of the spotlight regarding the Tempi tragedy, but he is the one who had the most involvement with the railways from the government side, at least compared to Triantopoulos and Agorastos.
He is an engineer and a prominent unionist figure of New Democracy in the Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE), who joined the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport in March 2021, together with Minister K. Ach. Karamanlis. Until then, however, he was paid as an executive in the administration of ERGOSE under its then president, Christos Vini. Mr. Vini and his successor in ERGOSE, Christos Palios, are also figures of the same political faction in TEE.
Mr. Xifaras was the main channel of government instructions to the Italians of Hellenic Train and was well aware of the state of the Greek railway system. At the celebration of the renaming of TRAINOSE to Hellenic Train, which took place in July 2022, a few months before the Tempi tragedy, both the then Minister Karamanlis and the current Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Christos Staikouras (then Minister of Finance) were present, but the company sent photos in which Mr. Xifaras was photographed next to the then CEO Maurizio Capotorto and the CEO of the parent company TRENITALIA, Luigi Corradi.
Maurizio Capotorto was called to testify before the investigative committee and found guilty of perjury, but Mr. Xifaras was conspicuous by his absence and was never called, despite repeated requests from opposition members. However, other individuals who testified before the same committee spoke of Mr. Xifaras’s role. For example, the President of the Railway Regulatory Authority (RAS) mentioned that she had never met Minister Karamanlis over the years but had a close working relationship with Mr. Xifaras.
Furthermore, it was Mr. Xifaras who signed for the establishment of the “Gerapetritis Committee”, which produced a rapid report on the Tempi tragedy before the 2023 elections, stating that it did not address the fire following the head-on collision. It is worth mentioning that Athanasios Ziliaskopoulos, who is now the president of Hellenic Train, was initially a member of this committee.
Giannis Xifaras was one of the General Secretaries who remained in the same position after the 2023 elections and continued to deal with railway matters. He was quietly removed from his position in September 2024 without any explanation and soon appeared on social media, being photographed on the Brooklyn Bridge…
