One man died and a second was missing in central Greece on Tuesday, after torrential rain unleashed major floods that submerged streets and wreaked widespread damage, just as firefighters were containing enormous wildfires in the country.
As television showed semi-submerged cars stuck on flooded streets and vehicles being swept into the sea or onto muddy beaches, the police banned traffic in three regions. The ban came a day after warnings by local authorities and Greece’s fire service for people to avoid unnecessary travel during the onset of the wet front, Storm Daniel.
Greece’s fire service said a 51-year-old Albanian national died after a wall collapsed on him; state news media identified him as a cattle breeder who was trying to reach his animals. A 42-year-old Greek man was missing after getting out of his car to try to push his 16-year-old son to safety amid raging floodwaters, a fire service spokesman, Vassilis Vathrakoyiannis, said by telephone. “The boy was found in the car,” he said. “We’re still looking for the dad.”
The floods particularly affected the port of Volos, north of Athens, and the nearby mountain village of Pelion, with Greece’s fire service receiving 400 calls for help in the broader area, Magnesia (although most were not emergencies). Video from Volos showed partly submerged cars in streets and people being ferried through floodwaters by rescuers in plastic boats.
In Pelion, a resident, Iro Proia, posted a live video on Facebook showing a car swept out to sea and appealing for help, saying that locals were trapped.
Earlier on Tuesday, the mayor of Volos, Achilleas Beos, waded through knee-deep water in the city as motorists sat in partly submerged cars, shouting at them, “Where are you going? This is insane! Go home! We’ve been telling you since yesterday, there’s a lot of water coming! The rivers are going to break their banks.”
The torrential rain came on the back of major wildfires that have been taxing Greece’s fire service this summer, the worst of which ravaged the northern region of Evros for more than two weeks, leaving 20 people dead and turning huge swaths of forest to ash.
Mr. Vathrakoyiannis, the fire service spokesman, said the authorities had been sending messages warning people to stay home since Monday. He said rescuers had moved 10 people to safety in plastic boats and noted that most of the 400 calls for help from the Magnesia region were not urgent. “Many were from elderly people worried that the floods would spread their way,” he said. “Most were not in danger,” he added.
Inland from Volos, the city of Larisa and the town of Kileler in central Greece were also hammered by the storms, with the fire service called to dozens of flooded homes and stores, as was the island of Skiathos, where video showed streets transformed into muddy rivers on Tuesday afternoon.
The extent of the damage was unclear, but local news reports said that at least two rivers had broken their banks. Greek state television posted footage of a bridge in Volos collapsing after the River Krafsidonas broke its banks.
The online portal of Greece’s weather service, meteo.gr, said the Pelion area had received 650 millimeters, or over 25 inches, of rain between midnight and 3 p.m. on Tuesday. It noted, for comparison, that the average annual rainfall in the Greek capital was around 400 millimeters, about 16 inches. The entire Thessaly region, in central Greece, received “a very large volume of rain.”
Although the rain eased on Tuesday afternoon, the fire service and local authorities remained on standby, as the stormy weather is forecast to continue through Friday in Magnesia. Officials’ greatest concern is that more rivers will overflow, the fire service spokesman said.
