The hotel lobby carries that familiar light of small-town hospitality. A polished floor reflecting a little more than it needs to, wood paneling on the walls, potted plastic plants imitating the real thing, and a television in the corner softly playing a local channel. The receptionist looks up every time the door opens. He is local, in his thirties.
“Many visitors asked about the accident, especially at first. As time passes there are fewer, but the issue keeps coming back,” he says. “What they mostly asked was: how could something like this happen here?”
The word “here” hangs in the air.
Trikala has carefully built the image of a city that works as it should. Bike lanes cutting through neighborhoods, digital services for residents, apps promising an easier daily life, data networks and sensors monitoring the city’s functioning almost in real time. Over the course of a decade, Trikala cultivated the reputation of a small Greek laboratory of modernization, a place determined to prove that innovation is not the exclusive privilege of major urban centers.
The many versions of modernization
But modernization in Greece has more than one face. There is the version of presentation and communication, the version of real innovation, and a third, less visible one: the version of labor. The factories, the shifts, the underground spaces, the hours spent standing, the piping that never appears on any conference slide.
On January 26, 2026, five women working the night shift were killed in an explosion in an underground production area at the Violand factory. The accident took place in a unit that had been presented as a model of modern industry, in the same city that in recent years had been promoted as an example of “smart” and innovative growth.
Technology, however, seems to have stopped at the surface. It never made it down to the basement.
And that may be the most disturbing part of the case: Violand was not an old, abandoned factory. It was a company that had built its reputation as successful and fast-growing in its sector.
“What must be happening in the others?”
A senior retail executive, who spoke to To Vima on condition of anonymity, described the perception that until recently prevailed in the market.
“What we knew was that this particular factory was, technologically, one of the most modern,” he says. “I’m not saying that to excuse any responsibilities or omissions, but to make us think about something else. If such an accident can happen in a unit we consider, let’s say, to be at the cutting edge of development in its sector, then what must be happening in the others?”
Until recently, Violand was more than just a brand name on supermarket shelves for the region. It started as a neighborhood bakery in the early 2000s and, in less than twenty years, became an industrial producer with nationwide distribution, a presence in major retail chains, and a steady foothold in private-label products. Its trajectory was upward, its partnerships multiplying. In the market, it was considered a “healthy” example of Greek manufacturing.
In Trikala, that “success” was measured not only in turnover, but in stable wages that paid for studies, mortgages, and daily obligations. The group employed 356 people—around 80% of them from Trikala and the surrounding villages of Trikala and Karditsa.
Allegations of intimidation
The Trikala Labor Center insists the explosion did not come out of nowhere.
“From day one we spoke of an employer’s crime,” says Giorgos Liatifis, secretary of the Trikala Labor Center and president of the Milk-Food-Beverage Workers’ Union. “Everything that has come to light so far shows we were not wrong.”
According to him, the union had already received complaints—anonymous, as he says—about issues at the factory even before the explosion.
“We went there on July 24 with a mixed team from the Labor Inspectorate. It was during a heatwave, and inside the temperature was unbearable. That was the only time they let us in. Every other time they did not allow us entry,” he tells To Vima.
He also describes the union’s attempts to reach workers who, as he says, were operating in “a climate of pressure.”
“When we tried to hold union elections, not a single worker showed up,” he says. “There was fear. They even called the police on us. The message being sent was that anyone who got involved with the union could lose their job.”
These allegations have not yet been tested through judicial investigation. Still, they fit into a broader picture already emerging from the inquiry: reports of a propane smell, questions about safety systems, and technical concerns raised months before the tragedy.
The rally and the dependency
In the first days after the explosion, the atmosphere in the city grew even more complicated when workers gathered outside the factory in a show of support for management. The images caused a stir across the country. At the very moment five families were mourning, part of the local community appeared to be defending the company.
Giorgos Liatifis reacts to that with visible discomfort.
“It was not a spontaneous mobilization,” he argues. “Workers received phone calls telling them to go. In small communities, when the employer is also a pillar of the local economy, the pressure is enormous.”
In his view, those images do not necessarily reflect the real feelings of all workers.
“Many people are afraid to speak publicly. Their jobs depend on that place. That creates a climate of silence,” he says. “In such cases, silence does not mean there are no problems.”
For the secretary of the Labor Center, the debate around that gathering reveals something deeper about the way labor functions in the Greek provinces.
“When one company is the main employer in an area, a peculiar relationship of dependence is created,” he notes. “But that cannot mean that discussion about working conditions and safety simply stops.”
Rigorous inspections after the disaster
In the Region of Thessaly, officials are avoiding public statements while the preliminary investigation is underway. But according to regional officials who spoke to To Vima, the line is clear: operations at the group’s two units have been suspended for different reasons, and their reopening will depend entirely on the company complying with the directives of the competent authorities.
The unit where the explosion occurred remains shut, while a second unit of the group was suspended after fire-safety issues were identified during an inspection. According to the same officials, the Region has formally halted operations and is waiting for the owners to make the necessary interventions. Once the corrective measures are completed, a new inspection will be carried out to determine whether the conditions for reopening have been met.
There is, however, no clear timetable.
Since the accident, the Region’s inspections of industrial facilities in the area have been carried out with particular rigor—a stance that, according to local sources, has caused discomfort among powerful business figures in the region.
Pressure to “get production out”
In the village of Proastio, in the Karditsa area, Angelos Liakos sits at a table facing the main road. Cars pass slowly, lifting a faint layer of dust. A woman stops briefly and greets him by his first name. Here, introductions are unnecessary.
Since last January he is not simply Angelos anymore, but “the son.” In villages, they do not use surnames when people are grieving—they prefer kinship.
He is 23 and studies philosophy in Ioannina. He returned for the funeral, but has stayed in the village. “My studies will have to wait,” he tells To Vima.
His mother was Stavroula Boukouvala. Her co-workers at the factory called her Voula. She was only 47 and worked the night shift. Seven hours instead of nine, but the same pay.
“She chose nights because it was fewer hours for the same money,” he explains. “She was going to leave the company. She was waiting for my sister to get into university and then she would leave. She wasn’t happy—I could see that. But she wasn’t someone who complained, she didn’t speak openly. Still, from scattered things she said, we could tell they were under pressure to get production out.”
The phrase returns again and again in the conversation. In provincial industry, production is not simply a target. It is the whole rhythm of daily life. Trucks that must leave on time, orders that must be delivered, shifts that never stop, machines running flat out no matter what.
“Production had to come out at all costs. There was pressure on the workers,” Angelos Liakos says.
Holding shirts over their noses
Stavroula Boukouvala worked on the line with other women from Trikala and nearby villages. Many had known each other for years. Their shifts were part of everyday life, as was the feeling that the factory was one of the few stable jobs in the area.
But in Angelos’s account, something else keeps returning too. Small details that at the time barely seemed worth noting.
“In the toilets, the smell was very strong, my mother used to say,” he recalls. “They couldn’t go in. They would go in holding their shirts over their noses.”
The technical investigation suggests the problem likely existed before the explosion. According to the report by the National Technical University of Athens, the underground propane pipe, about 7.5 meters long, showed extensive corrosion and lacked adequate anti-corrosion protection. The case file also includes testimony from workers referring to a strong smell of propane inside the factory in the period before the blast, while the investigation has already led to new criminal charges against individuals who allegedly played a role in the operation or oversight of the unit.
Angelos does not need the technical vocabulary.
“It was neither bad luck nor a freak moment,” he says. “It could have been foreseen in a thousand ways, and they did nothing. That is what I cannot accept.”
The investigation, the charges, and the owner
Recently, trained dogs from Anubis entered the burned-out area to identify biological traces. Samples were sent for DNA identification, and the investigation appears to be moving forward meticulously. After the Tempi rail disaster, the Greek state knows very well that there is no longer room for another case that looks hastily investigated.
But the real question is not only how a pipe broke. It is also how a “modern” unit in the Greek provinces actually operates, how permits are granted, when inspections take place, who signs off, and who ultimately checks the checker.
So far, charges have been brought against people who had a role in the operation of the factory. The criminal process is moving forward, and the accusations of “manslaughter by negligence” and “violations of safety measures” now recur in every reference to the case. The company owner was ordered held in pre-trial detention, while charges have also been filed against executives who had responsibility for the operation of the unit and the implementation of safety measures.
“The issue is institutional,” Angelos Liakos says. “It’s not only what happened that night. It’s also everything that didn’t happen before. We are not asking for revenge, and we do not want to accuse anyone unfairly. We are simply trying to understand.”
A few days after the explosion, as he recounts, the company owner contacted the family by phone. They chose not to proceed with a meeting.
“We told him that whatever is to happen will happen through the lawyers,” he says.
In Proastio, Karditsa, Christos Tzintzis opens his café every morning in the center of the village. Everyone passes by. Before work, after work.
“These women were not numbers,” he says. “They were people who came through here, we said good morning to them. It has been a huge shock for us.”
Before the disaster, he says, the factory was considered a good job in the area.
“What we knew was that you needed political connections—even local MPs—to get hired there. We certainly didn’t expect something like this to happen.”
The story of Violand feels painfully familiar in the Greek provinces. A company grows fast, becomes a symbol of progress, fills supermarket shelves, and offers jobs in a place where options are limited. Success is measured in tons of production, exports, and employee headcounts.
But the real balance sheet lies elsewhere: in whether the workers who leave for their shift at the start of the day will come home at night.
In Trikala, five women on the night shift never did.