It has been two years since the rail disaster in Tempi valley in Greece. The disaster resulted in many deaths - primarily young people returning to Thessaloniki to continue their studies. This has been one of the most serious rail disasters in Europe and its legacy carries on until today. In the next paragraphs I explain that the complete lack of acknowledgement of this event by the Greek community in Cardiff is a problem.

28 February 2025

It’s nearly the night of the 28th of February and I am visiting Cambridge. I had a remarkable experience in the evening as I was walking past the Market Square. I heard a person speaking Greek through a microphone. In the quiet evening of the town this felt completely otherwordly. I walked towards where I though the sound was coming from and to my surprise I saw a large gathering of people. I soon realised there were all Greeks. They were standing quietly as part of a vigil and sporadically chanting in Greek. They were all there to commemorate the victims of the rail disaster two years ago in Tempi valley.

There is a lot of speculation on why the disaster happened and who is ultimately responsible (in the century of automation it is not, of course, the station master in the city of Larissa). Regardless of responsibility, the Greek community in Cambridge commemorated the dead through a respectful and highly emotional vigil.

I am told that similar commemoration events happened in many cities around the world where Greek communities exist.

Cardiff

Being away from Cardiff on the 28th, I do not know if a similar vigil is being held in our city. Neither the Greek Church, nor the Greek School circulated any communication about organising a commemoration event during the days leading up to the 28th. The rest of the dispersed community arguably has no common reference point to be able to organise such an event, i.e. there is no forum or circulation list to allow such activity to materialise.

This is rather depressing. The date has passed. The opportunity to show support for the victims’ families is now gone. The Greek community in Cardiff is once again absent from such important activities.

Update

Since publishing this blog post I was informed that a vigil was held at Queen St. in Cardiff on the 28th of February to commemorate the disaster. This, at least, goes to some extent to salvage the lack of activitiy on this issue but it also highlights the fragmentation of the Greek community in Cardiff.

The Greek Leek