Fourteen people have died in the severe storms in southeastern Europe. More storms are predicted for Turkey, the situation is calming down in Bulgaria and chaotic scenes continue to unfold in Greece. The floods followed devastating forest fires in southeastern Europe.
In central Greece, driving bans and warnings not to leave homes were in effect in many places through Thursday. On Wednesday, chaos reigned in the region. In many places, the power supply, mobile telephone networks and the internet failed. In the bay in front of the port city of Volos, about 400 people were waiting early in the morning for a ferry that was not allowed to dock because of the storm damage.
They were finally directed to the port of Agios Konstantinos further south. Activities were also temporarily suspended at the airport on the Sporades island of Skiathos.
Central Greece is under water
“We cannot restore electricity and water supplies,” Achilleas Mpeos, mayor of Volos, told Skai broadcaster. “The transformers are flooded, it’s dangerous to even get there.” Without electricity there is no water and the sewage treatment plants do not work either, the mayor said.
The ferry ‘Superstar’ with its 400 passengers has been a few nautical miles from the port of the city of Volos since Tuesday evening. According to media reports, the port police had banned the construction because of the difficult traffic situation in the city. “It is impossible to clean the streets,” said Mayor Mpeos, “it just stops raining for a few minutes and we go in with heavy equipment, then it starts right back up.”
The amount of water that has fallen so far over the region of Thessaly is the largest to have ever fallen in the country since this data was collected, according to the weather agency EMY. The record holder was now the city of Zagora, where 754 liters of rain per square meter were measured from midnight to 8:45 p.m. on Tuesday. For comparison: this corresponds to an increase of about 50 percent, the old maximum was 417 litres.
“What is happening in (the region of) Magnisia is an extremely extreme phenomenon, both in terms of the amount and intensity of the precipitation and its duration,” chief meteorologist Kostas Lagouvardos told Kathimerini newspaper.
Meteorologists see global warming as a contributing factor
Lagouvardos suspects that the current high sea temperatures contributed to this. “It’s a static system that is constantly supplied with humid sea air, so it always rains in the same place,” he said. Air temperatures in the northern hemisphere of the Earth have never been as high as they are now (see graph).
More deaths were reported in the heavy storms in central Greece on Wednesday. Firefighters recovered the body of a woman in the village of Paltsi east of the port city of Volos – that of a man near the central Greek city of Karditsa in the evening. This increased the death toll in Greece to three. There were seven deaths in Turkey on Wednesday; Another 31 people were injured, the report said.
At least four people were killed on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. As of Wednesday evening, the total number of storm victims in all three countries has risen to 14.
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
