A state of emergency has been declared in Greece’s central port city Volos following marine pollution resulting from dead fish.
The Secretary-General of Civil Protection from the Ministry of Climate Crisis, Vassilis Papageorgiou, stated that a civil protection emergency was declared in Volos municipality, in the Thessaly region, to manage the consequences of the marine pollution that has occurred in the Pagasetic Gulf.
This is the second environmental disaster experienced by Volos port, located 330 km north of Athens, following last year’s flooding in Thessaly.
According to Dimitris Klaudatos, a professor at the University of Thessaly, around 20,000 hectares of Thessalian plains were flooded following storms Daniel and Elias. This resulted in freshwater fish being carried by rivers to the sea.
Since the floods, lake levels have significantly decreased Athens News Agency (ANA). Freshwater fish were forced to move towards Volos port, entering the Aegean Sea, where they cannot survive.
On a single day last Tuesday, authorities removed 57 tonnes of dead fish washed up on beaches near Volos.
The region has seen a nearly 80% drop in tourism since last year’s floods, according to the local restaurateur’s association.
“The situation with these dead fish will kill us,” said Stefanos Stefanou, the association’s president. “Who would visit our city after this?”
