After biblical flood, Thessaly is still unprotected
Initial protection work is completed, but major projects that would secure Greece’s breadbasket from a new major deluge are still pending
“If we ever experience something similar, God help us. We are completely defenseless,” a local government official in the municipality of Palamas in Karditsa, a regional unit in central Greece, tells Kathimerini when asked about the necessary anti-flood works in the area. “Up until now, nothing has started,” he adds.
At the one-year anniversary of Storm Daniel, which submerged entire villages, destroyed swaths of crops and left 15 dead, little has been done in terms of flood protection. The residents of the villages in Karditsa, which were flooded last year, see the flimsy repairs made in those parts of the embankments that were destroyed by the water and fear the worst. After a series of time-consuming procedures for approvals and assignments, anti-flood works worth 42 million euros only began to be implemented just over a month ago. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Thessaly on September 2 and presented the time line for ongoing projects, such as the dam in the River Enipeas.
As the regional governor of Thessaly, Dimitris Kouretas, says, the projects that have started now concern work on streams and strengthening embankments. “It is a small part of what needs to be done, no doubt. It is estimated that 200 million euros will be required just for the cleaning of the Pineios River, to carry out the necessary work of removing transported objects, dredging the riverbed and restoring its width along the entire length of the river from Vlochos to its estuary,” he explains.
So what can be done with 42 million euros? Essentially, with this money, the streams, rivers, dams and embankments will be restored to the way they were before the flood. And will this be enough to deal with a new extreme storm? “With the works that have been done so far, the cleanups in a number of streams, such as the ones in Volos that had been abandoned for more than 15 years, and with the installation of a modern civil protection center with weather stations, aerial vehicles, and sensors in rivers, a proper foundation has been established. I think we could deal with an Ilias. Not a Daniel,” Kouretas responds, referring to the two extreme storms that mainly hit Thessaly less than a month apart in September 2023.
Six kilometers away from Palamas, in Metamorfosi, the village that was completely submerged a year ago, the residents who have returned are worried. “The embankments have not yet been constructed. They told us that they would start working at the beginning of September, but that’s when the rain came last year,” says Dimitris Panagos, who climbed up to the ceiling when the water burst into his house last year. He was rescued by a fellow villager who approached by boat and removed the tiles on roof to open a pathway.
Kouretas says that the region obviously wishes to proceed with the specific project, but notes that ‘half of the projects that were planned after Ianos have not proceeded’
Anxiety that disaster could strike again is pervasive in the area. Local resident Kostas Kaletsis, who returned to the village and rudimentarily cleaned his house, says that he equipped it only with the basics “to get through the day.”
“Two metal beds and a kitchen. If something bad happens, I can load them into the pickup and we can go.”
In the neighboring settlement of Vlochos, Manthos Kolonas talks about the temporary fixes that were done to the embankments. “In the sections where the breaches had occurred they lifted the soil a bit. It’s not enough to hold anything back.”
While waiting for the major flood prevention works, the Municipality of Palamas prioritized the rudimentary restoration of the damaged infrastructure to serve the needs of the locals and irrigate crops. According to Deputy Mayor Christos Vaiopoulos, they managed to clean the entire irrigation network of transported materials and restore the irrigation of the fields, 95% of which were cultivated again. The biggest problems remain in the areas where the levees broke, where a large volume of transported objects has accumulated, which is not easy to clean up unless the restoration of the levees is completed. At the same time, the pumping stations that supply the irrigation network were repaired and 380 electricity pylons for agricultural crops were restored.
One of the problems that remains pending is the two large pumping stations in Korda and Klokotos, which were built with EU funding at a cost of approximately 1 million euros each. These are the pumping stations for flood control which did not work during the storm because no provision had been made for generators to provide power in the event of an outage, as can happen in a major natural disaster. Now, according to municipal officials in Palamas, the gates where the water escapes are working, they can be raised or lowered as needed, but the water pumping turbines have been damaged, which makes the pumping stations practically useless.
Three billion euros needed
The full anti-flood protection to cover the whole of Thessaly would require 3 billion euros, Kouretas says. Priority is currently being given to the most immediate interventions, which will not allow minor storms to cause problems. At the beginning of 2025, it is expected that mountain hydrology projects will be launched, essentially water retention works in the mountains with small dams and reservoirs. Meanwhile, the implementation of the study that was prepared after Ianos, the first major flood that hit the area of Karditsa in September 2020 and was assigned to Terna, is still pending. It includes the cleaning, dredging and adjustment project for the Pamisos, Kalentzis and Italikos rivers, which run through the plain of Karditsa.
Kouretas says that the region obviously wishes to proceed with the specific project, but notes that “half of the projects that were planned after Ianos have not proceeded.”
“We are not satisfied with what has been done. We had asked for 500 million euros in funding and we have received one tenth of it so far. However, the priority given to complete the model civil protection center is important for the timely and proper management of potential threats in the future. Also, in terms of the pace of implementation, even of the few projects that have started, we cannot ignore the extraordinary conditions that resulted from the goat and sheep plague, which changed priorities,” he says.
