The head of Greece’s weather service on Wednesday expressed a view that a spate of separate but devastating rainstorms in the country over recent days may be due to global climate change.
Torrential rainfall in the early morning hours of Wednesday and in the subsequent hours caused massive flooding in an industrial district west of Athens proper, bordering on the northwest part of the Gulf of Elefsina, resulting in at least 15 deaths and several people missing.
Antonis Lalos, the head of the weather service, which is officially known as the Hellenic National Meteorological Service (EMY), was quoted by local media as saying that although November is one of the wettest months in Greece “certain characteristics, however, such as the intensity (of precipitation), allow us to link the (weather) phenomena with climate change.”
He was referring to the Wednesday’s catastrophic flooding in the Mandra and Nea Peramos townships, as well as earlier storms on the eastern Aegean isle of Symi and in the Ionian islands.
Lalos’ statements, nevertheless, clash with long-standing criticism in the country that flooding in coastal areas is often due to poor maintenance of storm drains, gullies and even illegal building in ravines and dry river beds – the latter a scourge that has affected Greece for decades due to the lack of a unified and functional land registry.
