Greece flash floods: streets turn into rivers, red alert issued

Greece has been hit by fresh flash floods: heavy downpours turned streets into streams of water. The central part of the country suffered most, above all the Pelion peninsula in Thessaly. In places, water and electricity supplies were cut, and many roads are so badly damaged that they cannot be used.

The coastal village of Platania was hit hardest. Raging torrents flooded the streets, swept objects out to sea and even poured out of residential houses, as footage from the Reuters agency shows. An overflowing stream cut part of the village off from its surroundings.

Islands battered by the storm

The rains caused floods and landslides on the island of Skiathos in the Northern Sporades archipelago. Police temporarily closed roads to local resorts, and some routes remained impassable because of damage. Streams of muddy water also rolled through the streets on the island of Symi in the Dodecanese archipelago, close to the Turkish coast. On Wednesday, the highest, red level of warning about dangerous weather was in force for Thessaly, Euboea, the Sporades and the Dodecanese.

Hundreds of millimetres of rain

The cause was a cyclone over Greece and the Aegean Sea. According to the National Observatory in Athens, more than 100 millimetres of rain fell in 24 hours in places, especially in central Greece and the Sporades. In the mountain village of Setta on Euboea, 408 millimetres fell over five days.

The intensity of the rain may have been amplified by the rugged, mountainous coastline: humid air from the sea is forced up the slopes. Water quickly runs down short, steep catchments to the shore, which triggers flash floods.

These are already the second notable floods in the country within a few weeks. The previous heavy rain and thunderstorms struck Greece in mid-October; the islands of Rhodes, Euboea and Skiathos suffered the most damage then. The flood on Rhodes cost one person their life.

On Thursday the weather is gradually calming, but the improvement will only be temporary. A new cyclone will begin to form over southern Italy on Saturday and will then affect Greece as well. Fresh heavy downpours could again raise the risk of local flooding.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz