Eight days after a tragic workplace accident that claimed the lives of five women, the Violanta factory in Trikala remains sealed, and all excavation work has been halted due to the risk of a new explosion. Authorities have warned that even a small spark from machinery could trigger a disaster, while new safety measurements are expected later this week.
Workers had flagged problems and malfunctions in the propane installation as early as July, but these warnings were reportedly ignored. In November 2025, the factory management even barred union representatives from entering the premises.
Multiple Safety Failures Identified
Preliminary inspections revealed a series of critical safety lapses:
- Unregistered propane tanks and underground spaces with no corrective measures
- Lack of a plan to prevent or mitigate gas leaks
- Inadequate or missing inspections by authorities
- Substandard underground pipeline installation, including asphalt paving over pipelines
- Ignored reports of suspicious odors from employees
- Absence of last-minute checks using portable detectors
Energy inspector and mechanical engineer Michalis Christodoulidis, speaking on Mega TV, highlighted that the underground propane pipeline was installed without following proper technical specifications, leading to corrosion and leakage. He emphasized that pipelines should be coated, insulated, and buried at the correct depth with monitoring devices to detect pressure loss.
Christodoulidis also noted that the soil in the factory area is heavily saturated with propane, making the site highly combustible and dangerous, and warned against reopening the facility until the situation is fully controlled.
Regulatory Gaps Under Scrutiny
The incident has exposed significant institutional gaps in the licensing and inspection of medium- and high-risk industrial facilities in Greece. Christodoulidis criticized fragmented responsibilities among fire services, regional authorities, planning departments, and labor inspections, with no unified oversight.
He stressed that fast-track licensing procedures allow plants to begin operations without mandatory pre-operation inspections, placing sole responsibility on the engineer submitting the application. According to him, this system increases the risk of accidents and must be reformed to include coordinated inspections by all relevant authorities.
Unregistered Infrastructure at the Factory
Investigations revealed that the underground space where the explosion occurred was not included in the factory’s official plans and lacked propane leak detectors. Additionally, two overhead propane tanks feeding the factory ovens, whose pipelines initiated the leak, were unregistered in safety plans and over 20 years old.
Past inspections by the Thessaly Region in December 2019 had already documented violations regarding the placement of four tanks at the site, including underground tanks of 9,000 liters and above-ground tanks of 5,000 and 9,000 liters installed too close to property boundaries.
Authorities are continuing to examine technical records and documents to verify compliance with safety standards and the legality of the propane installation. Full inspections are expected to resume once the site is completely safe.
