Key points in the ongoing Tempe tragedy probe

Even though a year has gone by since the February 28, 2023 rail disaster near Larissa at Tempe, central Greece - which claimed the lives of 57 people, most of them young university students returning from a long weekend break - judicial authorities appear to have widened the scope of inquiries in recent weeks, adding more names to their list of suspects.

The growing list is seen as an admission that the net of culpability needs to be cast wider, and not limited to the stationmaster at the central Larissa station who set the InterCity 62 train, northbound from Athens to Thessaloniki, on the same course as the southbound freighter, and to the former head inspector at Larissa station who had assigned him to the shift in question on that ill-fated night.

Other key factors that contributed to the tragedy include the state of the railway line and the fact that automated...