Torrential rains since Monday evening have claimed at least one life in Greece, which has already been hit by devastating fires this summer, including the fire that ravaged the Dadia National Park in Evros (north) over the past two weeks, authorities said.
“On Tuesday there were heavy storms and rains, especially in Volos, the capital of the Magnisia (centre) department,” government spokesman Yannis Artopios told public television Ert, where a man was found dead.
According to initial information, the victim was swept away by a torrent, while a shepherd in the village of Agios Georgios in the same region is missing, according to Yannis Artopios.
The department of Magnisia and the islands near the Sporades are on alert, according to civil protection.
According to the National Meteorological Service (EMY), rainfall reached 200 mm in Volos and 516 mm in the neighboring village of Zagora at the foot of Mount Pelion.
According to Yannis Artopios, the basement of Volos Hospital was flooded and the fire department is “pumping out the water.”
Since Monday, the EMY has warned of severe weather that will hit the country until Thursday and “authorities are on alert,” the government said.
On Monday evening, storms hit Euboea, an island near Athens, where they caused landslides, and the department of Elide in the Peloponnese (southwest), where crop damage occurred, according to local media reports.
At the forefront of the huge fire in the Dadia forest in Evros, which has been burning since August 19, Yannis Artopios told AFP that “the fire is under control and no outbreak is active.”
“Firefighters remain on scene to monitor the situation,” he said.
According to experts, the forest fire in Dadia, an area protected by Europe’s Natura 2000 network, dubbed a “megafire”, has so far destroyed more than 81,000 hectares, almost half of the hectares affected by fires in Greece since the beginning of the summer, according to experts European Copernicus Observatory (EMS).
Like many countries around the Mediterranean, Greece is hit every summer by devastating fires, which this year have killed at least 26 people and devastated at least 150,000 hectares.
After months of historic drought, Spain was also hit by heavy rains, leaving three people dead and three missing.