Greek rescue teams recovered the bodies of four more people in central Greece on Sunday, raising the death toll to 15 from the country’s most intense rainstorm since records began in 1930.
Two other people are still missing according to authorities. Storm Daniel pummeled Greece for three days from Tuesday at the end of the hottest summer ever recorded, leaving a fresh trail of ruin after deadly wildfires.
Homes and bridges collapsed, schools, roads and power poles were destroyed, animals drowned and crops in the fertile Thessaly plain were wiped out.
The bodies of an 88-year-old woman and two men, aged 58 and 65, were found near the city of Karditsa, one of the worst-hit areas on Sunday.
Later rescue teams found the body of a 42-year-old man in the area of Volos.
Flood-stricken residents were being airlifted or transferred in lifeboats across the region.
So far, more than 4 250 people have been evacuated, authorities said, as efforts were focused on villages near the city of Larissa and close to the River Pineios, parts of which have overflowed damaging villages further.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the main operation centre in Thessaly on Sunday evening and announced that a mix of financial relief measures would be offered to those hit by the storm.
He said that the state’s priority was “to cure the serious wounds this calamity has left”.
Mitsotakis will meet EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Strasbourg on Tuesday. He said he wants to ensure Greece can get extra funds to tackle the impact of the storm, the extent of which he said, “was beyond any prediction”.
