Three die, three missing in storm; massive flooding leads to evacuations, traffic issues (vid)

According to the Fire Brigade, an 87-year-old woman that was missing from yesterday in the area Paltsi, Magnesia region was found in a pile of wood while 8 firefighters managed to recover her body. Her husband, 85, also reported missing, was found safe on Wednesday, police and firefighter information said.

In addition, a 51-year-old man died when a wall fell, due to the high quantity of water, on Tuesday, and a third man, 82, was found in Ellinopyrgos in the Karditsa area dead, after a car swept away by floodwaters trapped him. Eight firefighters with 3 engines tried to retrieve his body.

Still unaccounted for are two men reported missing by the Fire Brigade in the Magnissia region - one aged 70 and another 42 - and a foreign shepherd in Lefki, Larissa region.

Another individual, a 42-year-old man who was swept away by flooding waters at Aghia Ekaterini of Volos is also missing.

On Wednesday, police information revealed that a livestock farmer in Domokos, central Greece, was reported missing by his relatives. They said he left in the morning to take care of his animals and has not returned.

Traffic
Traffic on a section of the Athens-Thessaloniki National Highway, from Nikea in Larissa to the borders of Magnissia prefecture, has been interrupted due to the storm and flooding, with traffic diverted to safer roads.

Also affected were other sections of the national road network and northern Evia island, which also lost its power supply after trees fell on power pillars. In Fthiotis, near Domokos, heavy rain led to traffic diversions on the Lamia-Domokos road by the police, while the 120 or so residents of the Sofiada village refuse to evacuate. In eastern Fthiotis, near Pelasgia, torrents have created large problems by sweeping everything in their path including cars, and heavily damaged the paper mill of PAKO in the area. 

In the Karditsa prefecture, floods resulted in several evacuations including Palamas, Ambelonas, Fyllos, Psathochora and Metamorfossi. Water drainage networks cannot handle the massive volume of floodwaters, while the dam at Yperia broke.

In Athens, traffic was temporarily interrupted in both directions on Pireos Street (from Petrou Ralli to Chamosternas), and on Possidonos (from the exit to Syngrou avenue), in the direction toward Glyfada.

In the coastal town of Voula, traffic was temporarily interrupted on Konstantinou Karamanli avenue, from the Asklipio Hospital of Voula in the direction toward Athens.

Satellite images

Images from the European satellite Sentinel-1 that passed over Greece on Wednesday morning show that a large part of Thessaly's plain, a major production center, is flooded.  Even in areas where rainfall was not heavy, water coming down Pindos mountains and forming torrents has flooded communities. 

In some of the sample rainfall information provided by Sentinel-1, Kofi in Magnissia received 457 mm in the last 48 hours. In the same time span, Thessaly recorded rainfall as follows: Pezoula 414 mm, Mouzaki 397 mm and Karditsa 391 mm.