ATHENS (AP) – Widespread floods in central Greece have left six dead and six others missing, and dozens of people trapped. Severe rainstorms fed torrents which swept away bridges and roads, hurled vehicles into the ocean, and rendered large areas powerless and without drinking water.
Rescue teams recovered the body of 53-year old man in Turkey Thursday after floods had swept away bungalows and flooded a campground near Bulgaria’s border. Eight people have died in Turkey since Tuesday, and 18 across all three countries.
Residents of some Greek villages sought refuge on their roofs to avoid floodwaters rising to over 2 metres (6 feet).
Fire service officials said that 110 people, including one baby and a dog, were safely airlifted in an operation that involved ten helicopters. Local media reported that some of the people evacuated via air spent Thursday’s night on rooftops, without water or food. Authorities said that the helicopters were unable to take off earlier because of frequent lightning. They are now continuing rescue operations throughout Karditsa.
Residents of Karditsa, and nearby Trikala were cut off from their villages by flooding. They called radio stations and reported that homes had collapsed and appealed for help.
Around 200 people were evacuated from Mount Pilion, which was rendered unreachable by land due to rockfalls and erosion of roads.
On Thursday the body of a man who had been missing for one day was found in a river. Hours later, the Karditsa fire department reported that it had discovered two bodies in a Karditsa village. Three deaths bring the total number of flood-related deaths in the country to six.
Vassilis Kilias, the Greek minister of climate crises and civil protection said that rescue efforts would continue throughout the night.
He said that rescuers with boats, and other means available to them will go house-by-house in order to free trapped people from the villages.
In the Karditsa-Trikala region, he said that civil protection and army personnel will distribute more than 3,300 meals as well as bottled water to 24 villages.
So far, the fire department has rescued nearly 1,800 individuals. Six people have been reported as missing. The military reported that it has deployed over 25 boats in order to rescue those trapped by floodwaters.
Pavlos Marinakis, a Greek government spokesperson, said that the country was dealing for the third time with an unprecedented phenomenon. He noted that certain areas had received twice as much rain in a 12-hour period than the Athens average rainfall.
Marinakis stated that “the state’s priority is to rescue people… from areas affected by bad weather, and protect critical infrastructure.”
The spokesperson for the Fire Department, Vasilis Vathrakogiannis, said that swift water rescue experts and divers, from the department’s disaster response unit, as well the army were taking part in the rescue effort and trying to get remote areas.
In the aftermath of wildfires which destroyed large tracts of farmland and forest, and burned down homes leaving more than twenty people dead, flooding has occurred. The fire department reported that a forest fire broke out in Evros, northeast of Athens. The fire broke out in a region where the biggest wildfire in European Union history burned across a nature preserve just last week. The fire was being fought by 36 firefighters, backed up by four helicopters and two helicopters in Evros’ Soufli region.
Nikos Dendias, the Defense Minister of Greece, announced that he would return home to Greece to “monitor the Armed Forces’ contribution to dealing with the effects of severe weather.”
Thessaloniki, the city in northern Greece where the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mistitakis was scheduled to give his annual speech on the state of the nation’s economy and hold a press conference at the weekend. He did this in order for him to go visit those areas that were flooded.
The police have issued numerous alerts for people to stay away from the ground and basement floors of buildings and avoid going outside.
It was predicted that the storm, Daniel, would begin to ease gradually on Thursday evening.
The Greek capital was also hit by repeated rainstorms on Wednesday. They flooded streets, and turned a large part of the central Athens avenue into a river mud. People were swept off their feet.
Culture Minister said that the National Art Gallery, also located in the center of the city, was flooded but no paintings were affected.
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