Tempi road accident disaster
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19:30
| Tempi road accident disaster | |
|---|---|
| Location | 386km Athens - Thessaloniki National Road, Tempi, Thessaly, Greece |
| Coordinates | 39°52′33″N 22°35′14″E / 39.87583°N 22.58722°E |
| Date | April 13, 2003 19:30 |
| Deaths | 21 |
| Injured | 32 |
| Victims | 53 |
| Verdict | Truck driver fatigue, worn truck tires, incorrect cargo securing, etc. |
The Tempi road accident disaster was on April 13, 2003, shortly before 19:30, an intercity bus carrying 49 students and 3 accompanying teachers from the General Lyceum of Makrochori, Imathia, returning from a school trip to Athens, collided, at the 386 km, in Tempi, head-on with a truck carrying timber from Provatonas, Evros.
The driver of the truck lost control and found himself in the oncoming traffic. Although the bus driver managed to avoid a direct head-on collision, the truck was carrying a trailer carrying sheets of chipboard, which were released from the collision and entered the bus, cutting its entire left side in two. The result of the collision, but mainly the movement of the truck's trailer load, was that 21 students lost their lives, 4 were seriously injured and hospitalized in intensive care, and the rest were slightly injured.
It is the deadliest traffic accident in the history of Greece. The tragedy changed the legislation regarding fatal traffic accidents, the traffic of heavy and towed vehicles, and the hours and days of their traffic.
The main causes of the accident have been recorded as the fatigue of the driver, who was driving more than the permitted hours, the wear of the truck's tires, the incorrect fastening of the load, which, according to the experts' findings, was five tons more than the permitted one, and finally the age of the bus that transported the students, which should have been withdrawn from traffic. Possibly the two vehicles were moving at a speed exceeding the permitted one, as they had removed the speed limit from their tachographs.
At that time, in a large percentage of the Athens - Thessaloniki road network there was no dividing strip between the traffic lanes, and in fact in the Tempi Valley, due to the narrow and difficult morphology of the area, the width of the road became narrower, with only one traffic lane per direction. Today, the site of the accident, where there is a memorial structure, is located on the old Athens - Thessaloniki national road, as the work of bypassing the dangerous point was completed with the delivery of the Tempi tunnel in April 2017.
