Tag: Greece

Deadly storm sweeps across Greece, PM postpones keynote speech

At least six people have died and more than six were still missing on Thursday after storm Daniel swept across central Greece, triggering landslides, destroying roads and bridges and carrying away dozens of cars.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis postponed an annual economic speech scheduled for this weekend and will instead visit areas hit since Monday by torrential rain that has flooded homes and destroyed key infrastructure, including power poles.

“The state mechanism’s absolute priority right now is the rescue and evacuation of people from the areas affected,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told a press briefing.

“Our country is facing for the third day a phenomenon unlike any other we have seen in the past,” Marinakis said, before announcing that the recently re-elected leader’s main economic policy speech would be held in the middle of next week instead of Saturday.

The mainland port city of Volos, the surrounding mountainous Pelion area and the cities of Karditsa and Trikala were among the worst-hit areas.

Heavy rainfall, which came days after a two-week deadly wildfire died out in the north and authorities said was the most extreme on record, has turned many villages in the low-lying area of Karditsa, in the mainland Thessaly plain, into a lake.

Civil Protection Minister Vassilis Kikilias said during a press briefing on Thursday that six people had been reported missing in the area of Karditsa.

The fire brigade said the bodies of two elderly women were recovered from a house at the community of Astritsa near Karditsa on Thursday. The body of a man had been found in the town of Domokos earlier in the day.

HOUSES SUBMERGED

Rescue personnel operate during an evacuation from an area flooded due to the impact of storm Daniel, in Astritsa, Greece, September 7, 2023. REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki

Reuters footage showed houses submerged in flood water in the Trikala region.

In the town of Palamas, near Karditsa, dozens of people were trapped inside their flooded residences, Mayor Giorgos Sakellariou, told Open television. Residents speaking to local media called for help and for food supplies.

A fire brigade helicopter airlifted people from the village of Agia Triada, where at least 20 people had been trapped, the government said.

Since Tuesday, 820 people have been evacuated across the country, 750 of them in the Thessaly region.

A fire brigade official said that emergency crews assisted by the army and coastguard used lifeboats in an effort to reach the storm-hit villages in Karditsa, where water was 2 metres (6.5 feet) deep.

“Operations are been carried out very carefully as flood debris obstructed the boats, while, in other cases, the power of the water does not allow us to approach,” fire brigade spokesperson Vasilios Vathrakogiannis told a briefing.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/greek-pm-postpones-keynote-speech-after-deadly-storm-2023-09-07/

Greece flooding: ‘Scared’ British family told they cannot leave their hotel after ‘biblical’ rainfall

A “scared” British family have been told they cannot leave their hotel on Skiathos after the Greek resort island was hit by torrential rain and flooding.

Becky Taylor, her mother Emma Taylor and her grandfather, who is aged in his late 70s, have been there for a couple of days on holiday.

But they said that over the past 24 hours there had been constant rainfall from Storm Daniel as well as thunderstorms and lightning, with power cuts.

Pictures from the island showed torrents of water gushing through streets and sweeping cars away.

(L-R) Emma Taylor and her daughter Becky Taylor

At least one person has been killed after record rainfall hit Greece.

The man died near the port city of Volos on the Greek mainland when a wall fell on him, according to the fire service.

Five people were reported missing, possibly swept away by floodwaters.

Ms Taylor told Sky News all the roads on Skiathos had been shut, with police advising everyone through alerts to stay in their hotels.

She said it was a “scary situation”, with all the flights at the airport being cancelled – with 300 tourists reportedly stranded there.

Speaking from the Skiathos Palace Koukanaries hotel, Ms Taylor said: “We’ve had flooding, the hotel’s full of buckets of water leaking from the ceilings… and the bottom floor rooms have experienced flooding.”

She added: “The levels of water just keep getting higher.”

“We can see down to the beach where numerous sunbeds are floating out to sea, they have been completely abandoned.”

She also said she felt sorry for the local people whose homes and businesses had been “completely devastated”.

Her mother Emma said the situation was “literally off the scale” and “it’s just been biblical”.

“We’ve been to many places in the world and we’ve never experienced a storm like this,” she said.

“We have witnessed a hurricane in the Azores, we have witnessed storms before, this is out there with the most really dramatic, intense storm.”

She continued: “It is quite a big disaster out here.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/greece-flooding-scared-british-family-told-they-cannot-leave-their-hotel-after-biblical-rainfall-12955802

At least 5 people killed as rainstorms, floods hit Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria

Four people killed in Turkey and Bulgaria and one killed in Greece following flash flooding, with several still missing.

A car is submerged underwater during a rainstorm on mount Pelion, near Volos, Greece, on September 5, 2023 [Thanassis Kalliaras/Eurokinissi via Reuters]
At least five people have been killed in torrential rainstorms and flooding in Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria, including two people who were washed away when floodwaters swept through a camping ground in Turkey’s northwestern province.

Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Tuesday that four other people were still missing after the flash flood swept over the vacation site in Kirklareli province, near the borders with Bulgaria and Greece, where some 12 holidaymakers were staying at the time.

Istanbul’s Governor Davut Gul said on social media that authorities would provide accommodation in public facilities for those affected by flooding.

Turkey’s AFAD disaster management agency predicted further rainstorms for the west and southwest of the country and warned of the dangers from flash floods, lightning strikes and high winds.

Greece
In Greece, police banned traffic in the town of Volos, the nearby mountain region of Pelion and the resort island of Skiathos as record rainfall caused at least one death, sent thigh-high floodwaters through streets and swept vehicles away.

The Greek fire service said one man was killed near Volos when a wall buckled and fell on him. Five people were reported missing, possibly swept away in the flooding.

Streams overflowed their banks and swept cars away while rockfalls blocked roads and many areas suffered electricity cuts.

Greece’s weather service said a Pelion region village received 75.4cm (nearly 30 inches) of rain late on Tuesday, by far the highest level recorded since at least 2006. It noted that the average annual rainfall in the Athens region is about 40cm (15.75 inches).

A man cleans debris and mud from the street, following a flash flood during a storm in the city of Volos, Greece, on September 5, 2023 [Anastasia Karekla/Eurokinissi via Reuters]
On Skiathos, “planes cannot approach the airport” because of the flooding, Savvas Karagiannis, a spokesman for Fraport, the German company that manages Greece’s regional airports, told the French news agency AFP on Tuesday.

“The weather conditions are extreme and there are currently many delays in airport connections”, he said.

Greece’s minister of climate crisis and civil protection, Vassilis Kikilias, said the heavy rain was expected to ease up after midday on Wednesday. He advised people in affected areas to stay indoors.

“This is an extreme phenomenon”, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a meeting on Tuesday with Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

The rain storms and flooding come on the heels of devastating wildfires that hit Greece over the past few weeks and left more than 20 people dead.

Classified by experts as a “megafire”, a huge blaze raging over the last two week in the Dadia National Park, in the northern Evros region, destroyed more than 81,000 hectares (200,155 acres) of forest.

Bulgaria
In Bulgaria, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said on Tuesday that two people had died and three others were missing after a storm caused floods on the country’s southern Black Sea coast.

“Those who have died are one man and one woman,” Denkov told journalists from the flood-hit coastal town of Tsarevo.

Several hundred holidaymakers vacationing along the coast have been evacuated to safer locations.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/6/at-least-5-people-killed-as-rainstorms-floods-hit-turkey-greece-bulgaria

 

Greece discovers 18 charred bodies as southern Europe wildfires spread

Eighteen charred bodies were found in a remote village in northeastern Greece on Tuesday where wildfires have been raging for days, authorities said, as a heatwave that has seen red alerts issued across southern Europe turned deadly.

Firefighters said they were investigating whether the bodies, found near a shack south of the village of Avantas, were migrants. The surrounding Evros region is a popular route for migrants from the Middle East and Asia crossing from Turkey.

In the Greek port town of Alexandroupolis nearby, dozens of hospital patients were evacuated onto a ferry, while a blaze on the foothills of Mount Parnitha sent thick clouds of smoke over the capital Athens.

In Spain, Italy and Portugal, firefighters were battling blazes as the region suffered hot, dry and windy conditions that scientists have linked to climate change.

Temperatures in many areas were expected to reach or exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), forecasters said. Italy and France declared red alerts in a number of areas.

The latest heatwave comes after a torrid July that was the hottest month on record. Some 20,000 people were evacuated on the Greek island of Rhodes in mid-July and a severe fire hit Spain’s Canary island of La Palma.

Blazes on Hawaii’s Maui island earlier this month killed more than 110 people, while Canada this week deployed the military in its westernmost province of British Columbia to tackle fast-spreading fires.

In Greece, gale-force winds complicated efforts to control the fires. Fifty-six firefighters arrived in Greece from Romania on Tuesday and Athens was expecting further assistance from the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany and Sweden.

HOSPITAL EVACUATION

The 18 bodies were found south of the village of Avantas near the vast Dadia forest, authorities said. Another body thought to belong to a migrant was found on Monday, in a rural area some 40 km (25 miles) away.

“The possibility that these are people who entered the country illegally is being investigated,” the fire brigade said. It said searches were ongoing.

In Alexandroupolis, not far from Avantas, wildfires forced the evacuation of dozens of hospital patients, including newborn babies. A ferry was turned into a makeshift hospital after 65 patients were evacuated from the University Hospital.

“I’ve been working for 27 years, I’ve never seen anything like this,” said nurse Nikos Gioktsidis. “Stretchers everywhere, patients here, IV drips there … it was like a war, like a bomb had exploded.”

Flames burn a tree as a wildfire rages in Alexandroupolis, on the region of Evros, Greece, August 22. REUTERS/Alexandros Avramidis

Fires also broke out on Tuesday near Athens, where a blaze on the city’s outskirts, on the foothills of Mount Parnitha, burned homes and forced residents to flee.

“The winds are very strong … It is a very difficult firefighting task. God help us,” said Sotiris Masouris, a 50-year-old resident of Hasia, west of Athens.

WILDFIRES HIT SPAIN, ITALY

In Spain, where most of the country was in very high or extreme risk of wildfire amid the summer’s fourth heatwave, authorities were struggling to stabilise a huge wildfire that has been ravaging forests on the island of Tenerife for a week.

The blaze has burned through 15,000 hectares in 12 municipalities, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people.

In neighbouring Portugal, authorities placed more than 120 municipalities in the north and central areas, as well as in some parts of the Algarve – a popular holiday destination in the south – at maximum risk of wildfires due to the heat.

More than 100 firefighters backed by 10 aircraft were battling a wildfire that erupted on Monday night in the northern Portuguese city of Baião.

In Italy, around 700 people were evacuated after a fire broke out on Monday on the Tuscan island of Elba, firefighter Alessandro Vitaliano told Reuters. No casualties have been reported.

Italy issued hot weather red alerts in 16 of the country’s 27 main cities on Tuesday, including Rome, Milan and Florence, with the number set to rise on Wednesday.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/wildfires-rage-greece-spain-italy-heatwave-spreads-2023-08-22

Boat between Greece and Malta carrying about 400 ‘people in distress’ is ‘taking on water’

Support service Alarm Phone tweeted its concerns, saying it had received a call from the boat, which departed from Tobruk in Libya. While German NGO Sea-Water International said those on board were in “imminent danger of death”.

The boat said to be carrying people in distress. Pic: Sea-Watch International

A boat carrying about 400 people “in distress” has been spotted adrift between Greece and Malta and is taking on water, support services have said.

German NGO Sea-Watch International tweeted that those on board were in “imminent danger of death” and called on the EU to act.

Alarm Phone also tweeted its concerns, saying it had received a call from the boat, which departed from Tobruk in Libya.

People on board are panicking and several need medical attention, Alarm Phone said, including a child, a pregnant woman and someone with a physical disability

The vessel is said to be out of fuel and its lower deck is full of water.

The captain has left and there is “nobody who can steer the boat”, Alarm Phone said.

It added that it had alerted the authorities.

The boat is now in the Maltese Search and Rescue area, Alarm Phone added.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/boat-between-greece-and-malta-carrying-about-400-people-in-distress-is-taking-on-water-12853953

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