Eight hundred farmers in Thessaly, central Greece, are demanding the restoration of some 18,000 hectares of land around Lake Karla that was flooded during Storm Daniel storm last September.
NATURAL DISASTER
Despite Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ announcement on Tuesday of a payment of up to 10,000 euros, the farmers of Thessaly in central Greece said they are ready to continue their mobilizations.
The extensive restoration required to reopen the railway line in central Greece that was destroyed after a deadly storm last year will likely rise to 280-300 million euros from an initially estimated 200 million, sources from state-owned Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE), which is responsible for managing and maintaining the rail infrastructure, said.
The European Commission on Tuesday approved an advance payment of 25.3 million euros to Greece under the European Solidarity Fund (EUSF), “to ease the financial burden of reconstruction efforts” caused by Storm Daniel, a deadly cyclone that hit the country in September 2023.
The city of Pyrgos, in the Western Greece region, was hit by a rare tornado before dawn Sunday.
The Ministry of Infrastructure, and not the regions, will undertake the damage restoration projects in Thessaly and Evia, the two regions that were badly affected following the deadly Storms Daniel and Elias in September 2023.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday chaired a meeting with local administration officials near Lake Karla in the Thessaly region, which was impacted by Storm Daniel in September.
The direct effects on the hotel businesses of Thessaly and Rhodes from the summer floods and fires, respectively, are calculated at 95 million euros.
Natural disasters in Greece and the limitation of foreign visitors’ disposable income due to inflation and rising interest rates cost the country 500,000 foreign arrivals.
The European Commission on Thursday presented its proposal for a direct support measure worth 43.1 million euros for Greek farmers affected by natural disasters.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis presented the government’s measures for the reconstruction of the Thessaly and Evros regions in Parliament on Wednesday. Additionally, he outlined a series of initiatives to address the climate crisis, emphasizing that climate change is a global challenge unsuitable for political confrontations.
Dimitris Kouretas, elected governor of Greece’s central province of Thessaly last month in the wake of calamitous floods, struggles to sleep at night.
Government measures aimed at reconstructing the regions of Thessaly and Evros in the wake of this year’s disasters and addressing the climate crisis will be deliberated in Wednesday’s plenary session of Parliament.
When floodwaters gushed through the farming village of Metamorfosi in September, residents fled. Now they want to relocate their entire community, terrified it cannot survive another bout of extreme weather driven by climate change.
The European Commission on Thursday decided to refer Greece to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to provide updated flood risk and flood hazard maps as required by its floods directive.
Greenpeace has submitted 10 proposals to rekindle agricultural production on the Thessaly plain in central Greece, which was devastated by cataclysmic floods in September.
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