Fire Brigade: 820 people rescued and transferred to safe places

The Fire Brigade have rescued 820 individuals so far and transferred them to safe places throughout the country, Fire Brigade spokesperson Vassilis Vathrakoyiannis said in an emergency briefing on Thursday.

As he said, firefighters and divers as well as all the Civil Protection Ministry’s forces with the assistance of the army are operating under very difficult conditions in flooded areas trying to approach the most remote areas. In many cases the road network has been destroyed.

He clarified that the rescue operations with boats are made with high cautiousness because the debris make the movement of the boats difficult while the rush of the water does not allow them to approach. Additonally, the lightining activity do not allow the use of aerial means into the flooded areas and especially in eastern Thessaly where the extreme weather phenomena will continue until late in the afternoon.

The Fire Brigade have received 4,870 calls for assistance since Tuesday at 07:00 mostly for pumping water, trees removal and transfer of people to safer places.