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SStrong storms in Greece claimed three lives over the weekend. On Sunday morning, firefighters in the Thessaly region, near the city of Karditsa, discovered a 62-year-old man in the rubble of his house. It was previously known that a woman and a man had died in central Greece. People are still missing or locked in their homes, the fire department announced.
Hurricane “Ianos” in the west and another low storm over the North Aegean Sea caused severe damage across much of Greece on Friday and Saturday. More than 600 people were rescued from apartments or rescued by rescuers.
The images showed the trail of devastation: fallen trees and power pylons, cars washed away, sailboats blown away by the wind and waves or sunk in the harbor. In many places the streets were flooded.
On Friday afternoon, Greece’s north-south railway connection between Athens and Thessaloniki had to be closed until further notice due to a flood near the central Greek city of Lamia, as reported by the state broadcasting company (ERT).
In addition, electricity was cut off in many regions of western Greece and on the Peloponnese peninsula. Several ships were damaged in the ports of the tourist islands of Zakynthos, Lefkada, Kefalonia and Ithaca. A camp in Kefalonia was evacuated and dozens of beach bars in the west of the country were devastated. Firefighters moved over and over to get people out of the flooded houses, ERT reported.
Schools in many regions of western Greece also closed on Friday. Ferry connections to the islands of Kefalonia, Zakynthos and Ithaca were disrupted, it was said.
“Ianos” was a so-called Medicane, a storm depression that can form in the Mediterranean region towards the end of summer when the water is still high. As soon as it reaches the mainland, it becomes less violent. The older Greeks claimed that never before had such severe storms occurred. “He was hip-deep in water,” an 86-year-old man told Skai television in the hard-hit town of Karditsa on Saturday. “We used to have storms, but never that violent.”
