Hit by floods and fires, a Greek villager has misplaced hope

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The fires came first. Then the floods.

Within the little village of Sesklo in central Greece, 46-yr feeble Vasilis Tsiamitas has felt the extremes of both freak weather phenomena this summer, that procure made Greece an enviornment weather replace hotspot.

Storm Elias flooded his home, damaged his seaside bar and swept away his vehicle in September, ending off what changed into left weeks earlier by Storm Daniel, Greece’s most intense on file, and a July wildfire that scorched his family almond grove.

“God handiest is aware of how I will salvage previous this,” said Tsiamitas, standing outside his two-storey family home. The front door is off its hinges, propped up in opposition to a wall subsequent to wooden boards soaked by floodwater.

“What else also can hit me? It would possibly perchance probably’t salvage any worse,” he told Reuters.

Fierce storms and floods procure change into more frequent in hottest years while rising temperatures develop summers hotter and drier, increasing tinder-box conditions for wildfires.

Muddy roads and household furniture stacked up outside to dry in villages across the central mainland region of Thessaly, are a relentless reminder of the steps Greece needs to buy as it adapts to local weather replace to mitigate the impact of such freak weather events.

Sesklo, a village of about 800 residents advance the port metropolis of Volos and home to one of Europe‘s oldest prehistoric settlements, has survived pure disasters by the centuries.

But its eldest residents, Tsiamitas says, procure by no technique skilled the relaxation like this yr’s devastation.

“It is the first time that our village is examined a lot,” said Tsiamitas, who’s moreover the local folk chief. “We now procure elderly folk sitting on the village square who are 95 years feeble, 90 years feeble, they’ve by no technique skilled this form of thing sooner than.”

START FROM SCRATCH

The wildfire that broke out in July changed into burning uncontrolled for on the very least two days.

Sesklo residents had been evacuated in time however the flames, fanned by solid winds, burned by farmland and groves destroying roughly 70% of the village’s almond and olive oil production, said Tsiamitas.

“The weather conditions had been so irascible, the wind, there changed into no humidity that day, the fire changed into transferring fleet. There changed into no longer adequate time to have the relaxation,” he said.

In early September, Storm Daniel hit Thessaly after Greece’s longest heatwave in more than 30 years. It killed 16 folk and turned the place into an inland sea, destroying properties, farms, and wiping out swathes of vegetation.

Tsiamitas, whose seaside bar flooded, said most Sesklo residents weren’t as badly affected as others in the wider region. But their feeling of relief changed into short-lived.

Weeks later, Elias, a much less intense but unexpected storm changed into the closing straw.

Tsiamitas recounts that he had his youngest son in his arms when a raging torrent flung his front door birth, forcing him to stagger upstairs the place his in-guidelines stay.

Since then, the water has subsided, revealing the devastation that villages like Sesklo suffered.

“We ought to be taught our lesson,” Tsiamitas said, attempting at stumps of burnt almond bushes. “We now procure to uproot them … we procure to plant them again. Time and again again, we procure to open every thing from scratch.”

Further reporting by Stamos Prousalis; Writing by Renee Maltezou; Bettering by Alexandra Hudson

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Reuters files company contributed to this document, published by ORDO Recordsdata editors.

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