Greek port city in a state of emergency due to flooding from dead fish August 31, 2024

A general view shows dead fish floating in the Xiria River, near Volos, central Greece, on August 28, 2024. Photo by Sakis MITROLIDIS / AFP.

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Greek port city in a state of emergency due to flooding from dead fish

Athens: The port city of Volos in central Greece has declared a state of emergency following a flood of dead fish that residents say could threaten their livelihoods, the state news agency announced on Saturday.

The month-long emergency declaration, issued by the Climate Ministry's secretary general for civil protection, Vassilis Papageorgiou, will inject funds and resources to speed up the clean-up of the Pagasetic Gulf port, where tons of dead fish have accumulated along the coast and in the rivers, according to the Athens News Agency.

This is the second environmental catastrophe to hit the port of Volos, a three-and-a-half-hour drive north of Athens after catastrophic floods hit the region of Thessaly last year.

These floods refilled a nearby lake that had been drained in 1962 in an attempt to combat malaria, increasing it to three times its normal size.

“After storms Daniel and Elias last fall, about 20,000 hectares of plains in Thessaly were flooded, and several freshwater fish were carried by the rivers” into the sea,

Dimitris Klaudatos, professor of agriculture and environment at the University of Thessaly, said.

Since then, the lake's waters have receded drastically, forcing the freshwater fish to head for the port of Volos, which empties into the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea, where they cannot survive.

On Tuesday alone, the authorities removed 57 tons of dead fish that ended up on the beaches near Volos.

Most of the thousands of dead fish that flooded the Pagasetic have been recovered, while two boats are completing the process on Saturday, the Ertnews channel reported.

Special nets have been placed at the mouth of the Xiria River to contain the large volume of dead fish.

Tourist traffic in the area has already fallen by almost 80% since last year's flood, according to the local association of restaurants and bars.

“The situation with this dead fish will be the death of us,” said Stefanos Stefanou, president of the association, earlier this week. “What visitor will come to our town after that?”

The environmental crisis has prompted an investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office.

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