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'It was like the Apocalypse': Greece battles with aftermath of Medicane

Medicane Greece
Medicane Greece

Cyclone-like Medicane Ianos swept across Greece this weekend turning streets to fast-flowing rivers, burying villages under mud and rubble, and sinking ships with waves of up to seven meters. “It was like the Apocalypse!” said Patrick Lamouroux, a French holidaymaker in Zante.

Calling a state of emergency on Friday, Greek Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias said: "Mediterranean cyclones are relatively rare phenomena - we have had them in Greece since 1995, but they have become more frequent in the Mediterranean region due to climate change."

Throughout the weekend the terrifying storm roared through central Thessaly and western Greece, bringing torrential rainfall and winds of up to 100kmph, killing three people and leaving thousands homeless, with the islands of Kefalonia, Zakynthos and Ithaca amongst the worst hit.

Perhaps the most petrifying scenes came from the tiny village of Assos in Kefalonia, where thick mud and cannon ball-sized rocks rained down from the surrounding mountainsides, burying most of the village and leaving inhabitants trapped without electricity, water, food or shelter. “It was terrifying - we heard this loud roar as the rocks ran through the village,” one shocked couple told Greece’s Skai TV. “We cannot leave the village because our cars are buried,” they added.

Undermined by the adverse economic effects of Covid-19 and more than a decade of recession, Greece’s emergency services are ill-equipped to deal with such extreme weather conditions. Three days after the disaster emergency services are still struggling to bring aid to Assos. Volunteers from neighbouring villages have been clambering over the debris to bring essentials such as food and water to the devastated villagers. “We found people living in complete darkness, between ruins, in the mud and the rocks. Assos needs months to recover. The amount of mud and rocks there is huge. The coast road, the tavernas, the port and the beach simply don’t exist anymore,” said Kostas Vitor from Facebook group Volunteers Kefalonia, which is collecting funds to help villagers.

Medicane Greece
Medicane Greece

Greece’s emergency health services are also struggling to cope with the recent spike in Covid cases. There are currently just over 15,000 cases in Greece and more than half of the recent 4,049 active infections are concentrated in or around the Greek capital. According to the country’s health ministry spokesperson and infectious diseases expert Gkikas Magiorkinis, the number of infections have doubled over the past two weeks, because residents of the Greek capital and surrounding Attica region have returned from their holidays “The big urban centres are the Achilles heel, the incubator of the pandemic,” Magiorkinis told journalists during a recent briefing.

On Saturday Health and Civil Protection authorities announced stricter measures for Athens and The Attica region. The measures, which come into force today, include the temporary closure of all live music venues, nightclubs and indoor concert halls. “It is a death blow for our industry,” one musician told me. “We don’t get paid when we don’t work – no one helps us out, so we just don’t earn anything – and now with people scared to go anywhere with crowds, we just don’t know when we will ever work again. It is our entire culture that we are losing.”

According to a recent report from global credit rating agency DBRS Morningstar, Greece - where tourism accounts for more than 20 per cent of the country’s GDP - will be one of countries hardest hit by the Coronavirus pandemic. Apart from low occupancy rates, Greek hotel owners, who made a huge effort to open their businesses after lockdown, were badly affected by the British decision to red-list seven popular Greek islands. They say they are ‘devastated’ to learn that Ireland has now red-listed the entire country.

With many popular hotels and resorts planning to close – possibly within the next few weeks - thousand of seasonal workers will also lose their jobs. “We don’t get your furlough here,” says Giannis Oikonomou who works for a car hire company. “If we’re lucky we’ll receive a few hundred euros from the government to survive on. I just don’t know how we will manage.”

Speaking to hoteliers at the Thessaloniki Helexpo forum last week Grigoris Tasios, president of the Hellenic Hoteliers Federations, declared: “2021 will be a year of survival.”