Floods after heavy rain in Greece leave 4 dead, 1 missing

ATHENS, Greece – Floods caused by heavy overnight rain hit parts of southern and northern Greece Wednesday, leaving four people dead and another one missing, authorities said Wednesday.

The fire service said two women, ages 80 and 63, were found dead in their flooded basement homes in the city of Kalamata and its outskirts. A 90-year-old man also died in the Kalamata area, while the body of a 73-year-old man was located in a swollen stream bed in the vicinity of Sparta, further east.

All four deaths occurred in the southern Peloponnese region.

In northern Greece, authorities searched for a woman in her 60s who has been missing since phoning her husband early Wednesday morning to say she was abandoning her flooded car near Michaniona, south of the city of Thessaloniki.

The rainfall flooded hundreds of homes and businesses in other parts of the southern Peloponnese.

In the Thermaikos municipality, where the rain washed parked cars into the sea and damaged roads, Mayor Yiannis Mavromatis appealed for the area to be declared in a state of emergency.

“Some parts present an image of total destruction, while elsewhere there is partial destruction,” he said.