Cars lie in the sea and desperate restaurant owners wade in water. – I am afraid that carefree summers, as we know them, are over, and that from now on the coming summers will probably be more difficult. The Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said so on Tuesday. Two people have died and three are missing after the rainstorm “Daniel” hit Greece this week. Photo: AFP The Greek Prime Minister warned the population of an “extreme phenomenon” sweeping the country. Turkey and Bulgaria are also affected by “Daniel”. Various news agencies report between 5-7 dead and several missing in the three countries. The damage is extensive, reports the news agency AP. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou discussed forest fires and the embarrassment in the country on Tuesday. – It is the most extreme weather in terms of rainfall in 24 hours that we have seen since we started measuring water records in this country. That’s what the Greek climate minister Vassilis Kikilias said as he urged people to stay indoors. The port city of Volos, which lies north of Athens, is particularly affected by the weather. A summer of extreme weather Just two weeks after the deadliest forest fire in Europe this summer started in Evros, extreme weather hit the region. The fire continued for over two weeks, and at least twenty lives have been lost, Reuters writes. A forest fire near the town of Sykorrahi, near Alexandroupoli, in the region of Evros. The picture is taken on 23 August. Photo: Achilleas Chiras / AP Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated on Tuesday that climate change is the cause of both the forest fires and the extreme weather that is ravaging the country. This is happening on the same day that two climate reports are released. The EU’s climate monitoring service today presented new figures which confirm that August was the warmest August month ever recorded globally. – The last three months were the warmest in approximately 120,000 years. In practice, it is the warmest in human history, says Deputy Director Samantha Burgess of the EU’s climate monitoring service to the AFP news agency. A woman walks in a street filled with water in Volos. Photo: AFP The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also presented a new climate report today. It says that climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of heat waves. Extreme heat, together with forest fires and dust from the desert significantly affects air quality, health and the environment. Clear connection Hans Olav Hygen, climate researcher at the Meteorological Institute, says he can’t really say much about the situation in Greece, because he has never heard of so much rainfall before. – At its worst during “Hans”, there was a couple of hundred millimeters over three to four days. Here it was 600 in ten hours. I have simply never heard of anything like this in Europe before. This is a new scale. Hans Olav Hygen, researcher at the Meteorological Institute says that he has never heard of such amounts of water hitting Greece. Photo: Magne Velle Hygen comments on the findings in the reports from the EU and WMO as follows: – There has been a change. It has become significantly warmer and this results in a series of heat waves with tragic outcomes in the form of the large forest fires that we have seen ravaging parts of Europe. He says there is a clear connection between extreme temperatures and heavy rainstorms. Firefighters and civilian staff in the city of Volos in Greece. Photo: AFP – When it gets warmer, there will be more evaporation, then there will be more water vapor in the air that can rain down. And we also see that the cities have a tendency to become smaller in area, but more powerful as part of climate change.
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While the last flames from the forest fire are suffocated, extreme rainfall washes over Greece – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
