"No meaningful action was ever taken..."

A comment made by a writer I referenced in a post late last month about the deadly firestorm in Greece that claimed dozens of lives, led me to an article (and photo source) about a disaster of another sort in the same country.  Last November, a storm dumped substantial rain in an area called Mandra (near Athens) and caused flash flooding.  Another article described the floods as having "Biblical" proportions.  The raging, muddy waters were too much for many. First responders were busy and hospitals were filled.

As I've noted a number of times in this blog, allowing development in a locale known to be prone to flooding is simply asking for tragedy. The 2017 floods in Greece are no exception.  The government apparently did nothing as homes were built in areas that were known as dry rivers and stream beds.  So when the rains came, a resulting wall of water trapped 20 people in cars or basements.  All drowned.

Not only was the potential danger known, it had been studied and reported by the University of Athens.  But lax zoning laws (and/or enforcement) allowed substantial development directly in the path of the flood waters.  In an article written shortly after the floods, a university geology professor's remarks about the tragedy are sobering:

"It has been known for years that the area is a danger zone for possible flooding. Yet, local authorities and central government took no notice of numerous research papers by postgraduate students who studied the geology of the area.  (The University) chose Mandra as a case study, because it was an area where human intervention and ignorance or indifference …was criminal. A stream coming from the mountain about half a mile long was landfilled.  The tragic part is that at the landfilled area, which was at the narrowest point of the stream, the municipality built a depot. Then a supermarket was built. The water’s passage was completely blocked.  Two people had died there from flooding in 1996. Three years later, shops and businesses were also flooded.  Authorities at the time announced urgent investigations but no meaningful action was ever taken."