1999 quake victims still lack pledged aid
Some 490 people whose homes in the western Athens district of Menidi were destroyed in the September 1999 earthquake have still not received a promised Health Ministry subsidy of 5,870 euros (2 million drachmas) to help replace their damaged household goods. Yesterday they sent a delegation to Deputy Environment and Public Works Minister Yiannis Tsaklidis, who promised a solution within two months. The delegation asked Tsaklidis to send the list of applicants to the Health Ministry for a ruling based on the second inspections of buildings that were condemned or judged in need of repair and therefore temporarily unsuitable for habitation. Tsaklidis said he would set up a joint committee with the Health Ministry to examine applications, blaming the two and a half year delay on the Health Ministry for not asking for the list of applications for review, as it had done in other cases. Menidi was one of the areas hardest hit by the 5.9 Richter quake, which left 143 people dead and about 100,000 homeless, mostly in western Athens.
