Heavy storms lashing most of Greece have left one person dead east of Athens overnight and caused flooding and considerable disruptions, largely due to trees toppled by high winds.Heavy storms lashing most of Greece have left one person dead east of Athens overnight and caused flooding and considerable disruptions, largely due to trees toppled by high winds. The Fire Service said the body of a man was recovered from under a car that had been swept away by racing floodwaters in the town of Nea Makri, on the eastern coast of Attica. The Polish national, who was in his fifties, is believed to have fled his flooding basement home and been knocked off his feet and trapped under the vehicle. Rafina, further south on the same coast, also suffered extensive flooding, with traffic on the key Marathonos avenue stopped due to high water levels. Schools remained closed in several parts of the country, including the southern island of Poros where a small bridge collapsed and several cars were swept away by racing waters. The storms, code-named Erminio, persisted Thursday, with very high winds expected in the north and low visibility due to dust carried over from Africa in the south. Overall Wednesday, the Fire Service said it received nearly 500 calls for assistance in the Greater Athens region, mostly to remove fallen trees, but also to pump water out of flooded buildings and, in 33 cases, to extract people trapped by floodwaters. Authorities also received 90 emergency calls in Crete, 60 in the other southern Aegean Sea islands, 27 in the Peloponnese and 14 in the northern Aegean islands. On Thursday, the forecast is for heavy rain, high winds and possibly hail in eastern Macedonia and Thrace and parts of central Macedonia until the early afternoon, in northern Evia, parts of Thessaly and the Sporades until just before noon, and in Crete and the southern and western Peloponnese until late in the evening.
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