DTN News - SPECIAL REPORT: Dramatic Rescue From Flooded Athens
Source: DTN News (NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 23, 2013: Several hours of heavy rain and a thunderstorm in the Greek capital Athens have flooded roads and homes, caused traffic jams and disrupted the train and tram network, officials say.
The deluge inundated basements and forced authorities to close underpasses and a central subway station. The fire department said it had received at least 600 calls to drain water from houses and businesses.
Many of the city's streets remain ankle-deep in water.
"It was one of the worst thunderstorms we have ever had in the greater Athens area [since 1961]," fire department chief Sotiris Georgakopoulos told NET state television.
At one point the rainfall was so intense that parked cars were swept away by racing waters.
A young female driver died in a major flooding in Athens during heavy torrential rain on Friday morning, police authorities announced, as the weather conditions were gradually improving.
The 24-year-old victim had been stranded in her car in the flooded main street of a northern suburb of Athens and suffered a heart attack, according to police and hospital sources, local media reported.
The heavy rainfall, which had started in the early hours of Friday and was receding by afternoon, caused major floods in several parts of Greece's capital, material damages in cars and buildings, short power cuts, traffic jams and disrupted sea transports.
The Fire Brigade received approximately 1,000 telephone calls to evacuate motorists or pump out flooded basements of homes, office buildings and metro stations.
In a central Athens district, a derelict building collapsed without injuries. A female member of a technical team which was fixing a leak on the Greek parliament building's roof was slightly injured, when a metal part collapsed and she found herself hanging through a glass panel, local media reported.
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