Three weeks after the deadly storm Daniel hit Greece, the center of the country has suffered torrential rains for twenty-four hours which led to the evacuation of 250 residents in Volos, and triggered hundreds of calls for help. help, firefighters said on Thursday, September 28.
Since Wednesday evening, this new storm, called Elias, has focused mainly on the city of Volos, capital of Magnesia, Euboea, the second largest of the Greek islands by area, and the regional district of Phthiotida, causing the flooding of torrents, landslides, dam failures, flooding of roads and homes. Firefighters, supported by the army, intervened to evacuate residents whose houses were submerged in water using lifeboats.
Much of Volos is without power, and sections of the local hospital have been flooded, but the facility remains operational. Due to bad weather, a two-seater private helicopter crashed late Thursday morning off the coast of Euboea. Searches are underway to find the passengers, firefighters also said.
Storm Elias is expected to weaken Thursday evening
“Our thoughts today are with Volos and Euboea”, declared Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis during a meeting with his right-wing parliamentary group. According to the weather forecast, the storm is expected to weaken Thursday evening, but “rescue forces will remain on site”said Vassilios Vathrakoyanis, spokesperson for the firefighters, on public television ERT.
With around 140,000 inhabitants, Volos is recovering with difficulty after storm Daniel which, at the beginning of September, dumped downpours of water in Thessaly, the main agricultural production plain in Greece, around 400 kilometers north of Athens. The city was then deprived of drinking water for more than two weeks, and the damage suffered by the local distribution network has not yet been fully repaired.
Storm Daniel left 17 dead in Thessaly, destroying crops and killing tens of thousands of livestock. After Greece, it then struck Libya, killing at least 3,875 people in its path.