In the early morning hours of November 5, an unprecedented downpour broke out in Athens. Within a few hours the streets of the city turned into torrents, which flooded houses, shops and public services. In the center of Athens there was an interruption of the electricity supply, while in many areas the telephone connection was interrupted. Frightened residents of the capital sought help in the night.
The torrents swept away everything in their path in areas west of Athens. Houses collapsed and those who had not managed to get out were buried in the mud. “Kathimerini” of Tuesday, November 7 spoke of 39 dead, 8 missing, 7 injured, almost 3,000 homeless flood victims, 279 demolished houses, while another 588 were damaged.
“A rare intense and lasting typhoon, centered on the Saronic region, hit the area of the capital from the early hours of Sunday morning. The residents of Athens, Piraeus and the surrounding areas lived through a nightmarish night, during which literally all the elements of nature remained. The firmament was devastated by successive flashes of lightning and lightning, while at the same time, hail of an unprecedented size and an amazing continuous downpour turned the avenues into rivers and the streets into rapids, before whose fury nothing could be resisted,” he wrote on the front page. of “Kathimerini”.
The areas most affected by the disaster were Tzitzifies, Kallithea, Peristeri, Burnazi, Anthoupoli, Nea Liosia, Kato Patisia and Menidi, “where the height of the waters exceeded one and a half meters ». As the newspaper noted, “the mouths of the sewers were completely inadequate to receive the unprecedented volume of rainwater and were also blocked by drifted earth, stones and wood, resulting in the formation of strong currents in all the streets which flooded basements and ground floors”.
According to the “Kathimerini” report, “from 3 am the entire state apparatus was mobilized. The relevant ministers immediately rushed to the affected areas in order to receive information on the scale of the disaster and the progress of the rescue operations. Queen Frederiki also visited the affected areas. In order to relieve the affected and deal with the disasters, the authorities distributed bedding and food rations to the affected, who were temporarily housed in schools, they started blocking the bridge of Ag. Ioannis Rentis, carrying out the evacuation of the waters in Moschato by cutting off the Ilisos hollow, which were then restored, as well as various other projects for the evacuation of the waters that flooded the streets”.
The final tally of the disaster was 43 dead and 3,790 homeless.
Column Editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
