Two people died on Wednesday in Greece after torrential rain flooded homes and businesses in Athens and other parts of the country, authorities said.
A woman died after being hit by a car that was carried away in flash floods in the southern Athens suburb of Glyfada, a fire brigade official told Reuters.
Earlier on Wednesday, a cost guard officer was washed away by the rough sea in a port in Peloponnese, southern Greece.
“Ηe fell into the sea while he was trying tie up a small boat in the harbour,” said a coast guard official.
The fire brigade has received hundreds of calls to pump water out of flooded buildings in Athens. The rainstorm was expected to move to the eastern part of the country on Thursday.
A wave of severe weather affecting Greece since early Wednesday is expected to persist until Thursday afternoon, bringing heavy rain, thunderstorms, snowfall and gale-force winds.
Six regions – the Peloponnese, central Greece, the greater Athens area, Thessaly, the northern Aegean and western Macedonia – have been placed under a state of mobilization. Emergency text alerts urging residents to limit movement were sent to people in Athens, Viotia and Evia.
The fire brigade responded to multiple calls for water-pumping operations in Athens, particularly in the northeast suburbs of Papagou and Holargos. In Agios Dimitrios, in southern Athens, three houses near a stream were evacuated as a precaution.
Ferry services have been suspended nationwide, except for larger vessels serving the Saronic Gulf islands, Hydra, and Spetses.
