Floods and Fires: ‘Greece is Facing War in a Time of Peace’

After the recent deadly floods and fires, Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Saturday said “Greece is facing a war in a time of peace.”

He was speaking at the Thessaloniki International Fair as Austria confirmed that a newlywed couple vacationing in central Greece died in the floods.

“Over a two-week period, we experienced the worst wildfire and the worst floods in our history,” Mitsotakis said.

“The climate crisis is here and forces us to see everything differently,” he added.

The floods in the Thessaly region caused by Storm Daniel killed at least 17 people, drowned 110,000 farm animals and wiped out a quarter of Greece’s annual agricultural production, say experts.

And before that, northeastern Greece experienced a devastating blaze that raged for two weeks in the Dadia National Park. The damage there accounted for almost half the total area burned by wildfires in Greece since the start of the summer, according to the European climate service Copernicus.

Fires across Greece this summer killed at least 26 people, most of them migrants trapped in a forest near the northeastern border with Turkey.

Reconstructing infrastructure was urgent, said Mitsotakis, announcing a 300-million-euro boost to a special fund for tackling the effects of climate change, bringing the total to 600 million.

The government will fund the increase by raising an existing hospitality levy by between €1 and €6 per night, he said. Mitsotakis also made it clear that Greece will meet its fiscal targets regardless of the disasters’ economic cost.

Moody’s announced a two-notch lift of Greece’s credit rating on Friday, bringing the country to within one step of investment grade.

DBRS Morningstar, Scope Ratings and Rating and Investment Information Inc. have already given Greece investment grade since Mitsotakis won reelection in June, citing the country’s economic performance.

Austrian couple confirmed dead in Greece floods

An Austrian couple on their honeymoon in Greece are confirmed to have died after floods swept away the house they were staying in in Mount Pelion.

Their holiday home in the resort of Potistika was washed into the sea by flash floods brought by Storm Daniel on 6 September.

Although the pair have not been named, the Austrian foreign ministry said DNA tests had verified their identities.

“It is our sad duty to announce the death of two Austrian citizens in Greece,” the ministry said in a brief statement. “The results of the DNA analyses confirmed that these are the two people who have been missing since the severe floods.”

The team at the Austrian Embassy in Athens will continue to support the relatives, it added, without providing further details.

Coast guard crews found the woman’s body on the beach of Theotokos on August 8 while the man’s was pulled out of the sea off the coast of Mourtia beach on September 13.