16 people dead, several still missing after deadly flood in Greece
MANDRA, Greece: Greece was in mourning Thursday as rescue crews tried to locate several people missing in a flood that killed 16 people near the capital, with more thunderstorms forecast until the weekend.
Authorities said at least four people were still unaccounted for in Mandra, one of three towns about 50 kilometres west of Athens hit by a freak flood early Wednesday.
The latest victim, a 50-year-old man, was found in a mud-filled basement. It took rescue crews over a day to reach his home.
The poor weather is set to continue until the weekend, raising concerns for hundreds of people with waterlogged homes.
Late on Thursday, the capital was lashed by another thunderstorm and firefighters in northern Greece said they were called to drain water from over 400 homes.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whodeclaredthreedaysofnational mourning after the disaster, said he felt ‘shock’ after touring the area Thursday.
“This is clearly a rare and extreme weather phenomenon,” Tsipras said in a statement.
“But this extreme phenomenon had these effects because of (decadesof)accumulatedproblems and deficiencies in infrastructure and zone planning,” he said.
Experts have said ill-conceived building in the area — some of it by local municipal authorities — meant this was a disaster waiting to happen. Corrective drainage works for the area were approved in 2016 but work has yet to begin.
MeteorologistssaidWednesday’s heavy rainfall was concentrated on a nearby mountain that had been devastated by wildfires in 2016, facilitating the ensuing mudslide. Neighbouring areas saw much less rain, they said.
“It was like a tsunami,” Evangelos Kolovetzos, a local shopowner, told AFP.
Local resident Spyros Karambikas told ERT television that he saw a man being swept away by the torrent ‘like the wind blows away a napkin’.
“Thewaterinmyhouseroseto3.5 metres,” said Sotiris Loukopoulos, whose pharmacy is the only one still open in Mandra.
“Five pharmacies were destroyed, we are still operating because we are on higher ground,” he told Athens municipal radio, as residents tried to clean their yards with shovels and hoses.
Over a hundred firefighters aided by army machinery were mounting search and rescue efforts in Mandra, Nea Peramos and Megara, the semi-rural communities west of Athens hit hardest by the deluge.
Theoperationunfoldedalongside gutted, debris-strewn streets, overturned cars and hundreds of flooded homes and shops as utility crews laboured to restore power and water services.
Emergency crews used pumps to drain water as police reinforcements were sent to the area to prevent looting. — AFP