Serious flooding caused by heavy rainfall and hailstorms in the Peloponnese and northern Greece has caused massive damage as well as claiming the lives of three people.
Apart from the 82-year-old woman who was found drowned near her home in the village of Lithari last Sunday, a 75-year-old motorcyclist was killed on the Ionian island of Corfu when he was struck by a tree uprooted amid strong winds, and in the village of Avlaki in Aetoloacarnania, a 75-year-old woman was crushed when an outdoor structure collapsed under the weight of the snow that had accumulated on it.
In northern Greece, several homes were flooded, with the prefectures of Xanthi and Rhodope hit particularly badly.
The Peloponnesian prefecture of Ileia, which still hasn’t recovered from massive forest fires that devastated the region in 2007, suffered major damages over the weekend due to extensive flooding.
Authorities had declared a state of emergency in the prefecture’s capital of Pyrgos last Monday and had sought to divert the waters of the River Alfeios, which broke its banks following the heavy rainfall, to tributaries.
The regional fire service continued to receive dozens of calls from citizens seeking help for flooded basement stores or homes.
Meanwhile state inspectors started the tough job of assessing the extent of the damage to homes, public property and farmland. Their task was hampered by fresh rainfall which was set to continue until yesterday, according to meteorologists.
In Attica, stormy weather led to several roads being closed due to flooding and knocked out the power supply in several neighbourhoods, especially in southern and western Athens. The fire service was inundated with calls, chiefly reports of trees uprooted by winds reaching ten on the Beaufort scale. Similar problems were reported in several smaller cities.
Source: Kathimerini