Six foreigners died in severe storm in Chalkidiki; officials surveying infrastructural damage
File photo: Την ανάγκη εγρήγορσης και σχεδιασμού για το επερχόμενο νέο κύμα κακοκαιρίας υπογράμμισε το κυβερνητικό κλιμάκιο στην Ολυμπιάδα Χαλκιδικής. AMNA
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Six foreign nationals, including two children, were killed after extreme weather conditions struck Chalkidiki.
- An 8-year boy and a 54-year woman from Romania were killed when the roof of a restaurant they were dining fell as a result of gale-force winds, rain and hailstorms that struck in the area.
Earlier, two elderly Czech tourists were killed when strong winds and water swept away their travel trailer.Two more deaths were recorded in Nea Potidea, where a tree fell on a 39-year-old Russian and his son, about two years old, living in a hotel unit in the area.
With the prime minister constantly briefed on developments and authorities rushing to assess damage and restore services, reports of injuries and infrastructural damage keeps coming in.
Thessaloniki Hospital
In Papanikolaou Hospital in Thessaloniki, five people were admitted to care while an individual is in critical condition.
Hospital director Maria Yogatzi said they 22 people were brought to the hospital with injuries throughout Wednesday night; nine of these were admitted. Besides the emergency case, four are hospitalized with fractures, three of these in the orthopedic clinic and one in the neurological surgery clinic.
Power outages
Approximately 80 percent of the prefecture in Chalkidiki has been out of power since Wednesday’s storm, according to Macedonia-Thrace’s Hellenic Electricity Distributor Network Operator (HEDNO) chief Ioannis Amanatidis.
Dozens of workers are on the site to restore the damage in the electricity distribution network. “There is terrible destruction. We have a series of broken electricity pillars. We want to track down all damaged items in order to get them replaced,” Amanatidis said, adding: “We are aiming to have restored electricity in 70 pct of the region by the evening. We will start from the urban clusters, cities and towns.”
Train service restored
All railway schedules between Thessaloniki and Alexandroupoli in northern Greece have been restored after they were suspended as a result of the storm, TrainOSE said on Thursday.
Earlier, authorities had reported that the Xanthi-Alexandroupoli railway line was out of service due to flooding in the area.
ANA-MPA