In the early morning hours of Monday, January 26, 2026, a powerful explosion ripped through the Violanta biscuit plant on the outskirts of Trikala, a city in Thessaly, central Greece, about 320 km (~ 200 miles) north of Athens, the country’s capital.

According to the fire department, 11 workers were inside the factory’s affected production wing at the time. Rescue crews recovered the bodies of five women workers from the debris. The rest were pulled out alive, along with a firefighter who suffered minor injuries during the response.

Investigators said the explosion appeared to have originated near gas-powered industrial ovens, from a propane leak in a pipe buried about 80 cm (~ 2.5 feet) below the plant’s basement floor. Workers had complained for weeks of a strong gas odor that indicated such a possible leak. Management dismissed the complaints and did nothing to investigate or address the issue.

In an emergency meeting, the Trikala Labor Center called a 24-hour strike on January 27, the day after the explosion, with a rally at Riga Feraiou Square in Trikala. “Unfortunately, our constant interventions throughout the previous period regarding health and safety measures in workplaces, and in this specific enterprise, have not been heeded, because evidently the employer treats them as a cost,” said a statement by the labor center.

“As a result, the list of dead and injured workers continues to grow as they struggle to earn their daily wage. All workers and all people are called to participate in the STRIKE and the rallies, demanding that the causes of this crime be fully investigated, that responsibility be assigned, and that a clear message be sent to employers and the government that all measures to protect workers must be taken. Workers must not be treated as disposable, but as human beings and employees with rights — first and foremost, the right ‘to return home alive and unharmed.’”

Nikos Stravelakis, an economist at the University of Athens, in Athens, Greece, shared with World-Outlook the column below about this workplace disaster.

Translation from the Greek original and photos are by World-Outlook.

— World-Outlook editors

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The crime at the Violanta factory and the government’s outrageous spin. We can’t let it stand.

By Nikos Stravelakis

The tragic deaths of five female workers after an explosion at a factory in the city of Trikala has shaken Greece. The explosion took place at the Trikala factory of the “Violanta” biscuit manufacturer during the night shift. The victims were in their large majority young women workers, many of them mothers (that’s why they worked the night shift). According to the fire department’s initial report, a propane leak that filled an underground space in the factory’s basement caused the explosion.

Propane is used as fuel in the ovens of industrial bakeries. Because it is extremely flammable, it is stored in dedicated tanks and circulates through specialized pipes. In fact, since it is odorless, special odor is added to industrial propane and meters are installed in all areas through which the gas travels so that possible leaks can be immediately detected.

In Violanta’s case, it appears that these safety measures were not implemented. Neither the storage tanks nor the propane pipes met safety standards. In addition, so that I won’t contemplate something more malicious, the company’s technical personnel do not seem to have had much knowledge of the industrial production of baked goods. I can’t draw any other conclusion from the statement of the company’s owner and CEO who said he thought the intense odor inside the factory was coming from sewage. At best, this statement shows criminal ignorance of the production process and safety conditions.

In the end, the propane seemed to have concentrated in an area of the basement whose function or design had not been disclosed to authorities, and which was transformed into a bomb. A spark was enough to set it off and incinerate the entire factory, killing the five workers and injuring the rest of those staffing the night shift.

Naturally, the company’s owner and the safety manager were arrested, but they are not the only ones responsible for the disaster. Ministry of Labor inspectors allowed this factory to operate for years with a temporary permit even though the company did not disclose parts of the factory’s structure and did not implement essential safety features.

But the stance of government officials was the most outrageous. They initially declared through one of their usual suspects, Mr. Adonis Georgiadis [minister of health and vice president of the governing New Democracy party], that the company bears no responsibility for what happened (according to the daily newspaper Vima, 1/30/2026). His statement reminded everyone of his declarations about the Hellenic Train a few hours after the crime at Tempi.^[1] Immediately after the fire department released its [Violanta] report, which is the source of the facts outlined above, the government press secretary tried to walk back these comments.

He tried to blame officials of the city [of Trikala] and Thessaly province, as if the Ministry of Labor had disappeared. This is a well-known diversionary tactic the government in Athens uses in responding to deadly natural disasters and workplace accidents/crimes.

What took the cake, however, was the statement by Mr. [Akis] Skertsos [the government’s minister of state, equivalent to the White House chief of staff] who declared that Greece is among three European countries with the smallest number of labor accidents. He was obviously using the absolute number of workplace accidents whose rate is determined by the country’s population and the size of its industrial workforce. Because in proportion to its industries Greece has one of the highest rates of labor accidents. What’s worse, it’s unconscionable to dismiss such a tragedy with a backhanded “it happens elsewhere too.” For a long time now, the New Democracy government has been oozing with blatant cynicism.

The overall conclusion from this tragedy is that the official narrative of a developing Greek economy is not only false. It’s accompanied by systematic super exploitation of working people, violation of safety measures, and destruction of the environment. Violanta is a typical example for another reason. The CEO who was arrested is a political buddy of Mr. [Kyriakos] Mitsotakis [the Greek prime minister] and of the member of parliament from the [Trikala] area who as a civil engineer designed the factory with its “undeclared areas.” In fact, I’ve been informed that Mr. Mitsotakis had visited the factory during a tour of the region, or isn’t that so?

NOTES

[1] The February 28, 2023, train crash at Tempi in northern Greece was a head-on collision between a passenger and freight train that killed 57 people, most of them college students traveling after a holiday weekend. The Association of Relatives of the Victims of this railway disaster has called it a crime due to chronic safety system failures, lack of accountability, and government cover-ups. The disaster has triggered widespread protests, with more than 80% of Greek citizens doubting the government’s take and demanding an independent investigation. Although the inquiry has so far implicated 43 state officials, none of them have yet been held accountable. Protests demanding justice have included nationwide walkouts by college and high school students, labor strikes, vigils, and demonstrations drawing millions of people in Athens and cities and towns across the country over the last two years, on the first and second anniversary of the disaster. It is one of the largest protest movements in Greek history.

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