JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Mass protests are expected to bring parts of Greece to a standstill tomorrow, the two-year anniversary of the country's deadliest railway disaster. Public outrage over the Tempi crash is resurfacing, with a new poll showing 72% of Greeks believe the government tried to cover it up. Journalist Lydia Emmanouilidou reports.
LYDIA EMMANOUILIDOU: Evdokia Tsagli remembers laughing moments before the train she was on collided head-on with a cargo train. Her carriage spun through the air.
EVDOKIA TSAGLI: I think I said over 100 times to myself, when is it going to stop? When is it going to stop?
EMMANOUILIDOU: Her wagon landed on top of the dining car ahead. She saw flames and smelled something unrecognizable. Tsagli survived, but 57 others did not. Like many other victims, she insists this was not an accident.
TSAGLI: Because we're talking about a series of crimes.
EMMANOUILIDOU: And many Greeks suspect wrongdoing.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTORS: (Shouting in Greek).
EMMANOUILIDOU: After the collision, mass protests erupted. Despite millions in EU funding for railway safety, Greece never implemented critical signaling and remote control systems. Rail workers and officials repeatedly warned of an imminent disaster. But Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis blamed the crash on human error. Officials ruled the fire was caused by silicone oils in the train's transformer. He dismissed those who questioned the official story as conspiracy theorists, until this recording surfaced last month.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED TRAIN PASSENGER: (Speaking Greek).
EMMANOUILIDOU: In an emergency call aired on Greek public media, a passenger says, I have very little oxygen.
MANOS PAPADAKIS: We also hear one person confessing, we are dying, and turns to her best friend and tells her, I love you.
EMMANOUILIDOU: Manos Papadakis, a professor at the University of Houston, is part of a team hired by victims' families to investigate. Their analysis of this audio, along with existing video, suggests that as many as 30 passengers survived the crash only to be burned alive. Experts believe one of the trains was carrying highly flammable undeclared cargo that ignited on impact. What once sounded like conspiracy theories now seemed plausible. Nikos Passas, a Greek-American criminologist at Northeastern University, has been researching the case and the government's handling, which he says bears signs of corruption.
NIKOS PASSAS: What is extraordinary is how unconscionable the response has been.
EMMANOUILIDOU: He points to evidence that the government tried to shield officials. When the European Public Prosecutor's Office tried to investigate former transport ministers, Greece's ruling party blocked it. And the prime minister faces allegations of attempting to influence the Greek judicial investigation. Passas says the crash site was tampered with. Some 50 truckloads of soil were removed, wreckage displaced and the area paved over, making, he says, forensic recovery impossible.
PASSAS: So either we're talking about irresponsibility and extraordinary incompetence or concerted effort to hide something.
EMMANOUILIDOU: Passas says the perception of a cover is unusually widespread. Under growing pressure and new protests fueled by the distress call tape, Prime Minister Mitsotakis recently walked back his earlier claims, admitting he could no longer rule out illicit cargo.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER KYRIAKOS MITSOTAKIS: (Speaking Greek).
EMMANOUILIDOU: He told local media that many possibilities remain open. The scale and intensity of protests in the coming weeks may influence the future of PM Mitsotakis and his government.
For NPR News, I'm Lydia Emmanouilidou in Athens.
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