Sharjah24 - AFP: Following weeks of flooding that claimed 17 lives, hundreds of people were rescued from floodwaters in Greece overnight and early on Thursday, according to officials.
The fire service said it had assisted over 250 people in the region surrounding the central city of Volos, where a curfew was declared Wednesday as Storm Elias made landfall.
The storm also hit the island of Evia, prompting emergency traffic restrictions in the north of the island.
Much of Volos was without electricity and sections of the local hospital flooded, though the facility remained operational.
Elias is expected to abate on Friday.
Volos, a city of nearly 140,000, was still struggling to recover from Storm Daniel, which three weeks ago dumped cataclysmic amounts of rain in central Greece.
Volos was without drinking water for over two weeks earlier this month, and the damage to the local utility network has still not been fully repaired.
Storm Daniel left 17 dead, destroyed crops, and killed tens of thousands of farm animals across a wide area in the heart of Greece's agricultural production.
Agriculture Minister Lefteris Avgenakis on Wednesday said clean-up crews had disposed of over 180,000 dead livestock and poultry, but were still unable to reach over a dozen chicken farms cut off from access roads.
Destroyed crops include cotton, corn, wheat, apples and kiwis, he said.
Facing a barrage of criticism at a perceived failure in cooperation between the army and civil protection in the hours following the disaster, the government has pledged over two billion euros ($2.1 billion) in reconstruction funds.
EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski is scheduled to tour the central region of Thessaly on October 5, Avgenakis said Wednesday.
The heavy rains and flooding followed devastating fires in Greece this summer that killed at least 26 people, most of them migrants trapped in a forest near the northeastern border with Turkey.
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