Greek emergency services are trying to rescue dozens of people from villages in the country’s central region, where more rain has fallen in 24 hours than normal in a year.
A “large-scale” operation is being carried out to reach the villages near the city of Karditsa, where the water level has risen between 1.5 and two meters, the spokesman for the firefighters, Yannis Artopios.
“It’s very difficult to reach them,” he said.
The effects of the torrential rains are being aggravated by the aridity of the soils burned by the large fires this summer.
Greece was affected by “rainfall of between 600 and 800 millimeters in 24 hours” in the center of the country, “an unprecedented phenomenon” for as long as records exist, meteorologist Dimitris Ziakopoulos said Wednesday at a press conference in Athens.
“It seems that the mountainous region of Magnesia was hit by between 600 and 800 millimeters of rain in 24 hours, an unprecedented phenomenon in the country’s meteorological data,” measured since 1955, said the specialist, vice president of the Center for Management Studies. of Crisis of the Ministry of Climate Crisis.
The waterspouts that fell, especially during the day on Tuesday, on the city of Volos, the regional capital of Magnesia, and Mount Pelion represent “a large amount [de água] for Greece, as well as for many regions of Europe”, stressed Ziakopoulos at the joint press conference with the Minister of Climate Crisis, Vassilis Kikilias.
“This is an extraordinary situation,” he insisted.
The minister stressed, for his part, that “the intensity and duration of the phenomenon are also without precedent.”
At least 14 people have died in recent days in the floods that have affected Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria.
Faced with criticism of the victims and the serious damage caused by the floods in Magnesia and neighboring regional departments, the minister indicated that it would be necessary to reorganize the country’s infrastructure to deal with “the climate crisis”.
Torrential rains in Greece are expected to last until Thursday afternoon, according to forecasts from the National Weather Service.
Source: TSF
