New findings on Tempi crash
The Universities of Ghent and Pisa have analysed a traffic accident. Around two years after the collision of a freight and a passenger train in the municipality of Tempi in Greece an initial draught analysis of the incident has been released. The investigation team hopes to fully clarify the causes by the end of February.
Two years ago a passenger and a freight train collided in the municipality of Tempi in Greece, resulting in the loss of 57 lives. According to a news report by the Swiss national television station SRF, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the investigation of the accident in no less than 100 cities at the end of January.
SRF reported that the protests were motivated by a feeling amongst the population that the circumstances of the accident are being covered up rather than investigated.
On the last day of January Hellenic Train, the operator of the passenger train involved in the incident, issued a statement reaffirming that it will make “all of the available data accessible to any competent authority.”
Additionally, the statement listed the cargo that was carried in each wagon of the freight train. Some details reportedly don’t match the findings of a draught report issued by the ‘National organisation for the investigation of air and rail accidents and transport safety’, however, details of which were first published in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini early in February.
Conflicting explanations
According to Hellenic Train, wagons 13 were loaded with sheet metal. Kathimerini, in contrast, has reported that it appears that the report is expected to verify that 34 t of “probably aromatic hydrocarbons” were transported in the train’s third wagon. No tank with a capacity to carry dozens of tonnes has been confirmed, however.
Researchers are reconstructing the sequence of events using train movement data, while video footage is being analysed to investigate the explosions. The report hasn’t yet definitively determined what type of cargo caused the explosion. Kathimerini states that the analysis will take some time yet, with the final report expected to be released by the end of February.